Preamble

The House met at half-past Two o'clock

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

PRIVATE BUSINESS

COVENT GARDEN MARKET BILL

So much of the Lords Message [23rd October] as relates to the Covent Garden Market Bill to be considered forthwith.— [Mr. Ioan L. Evans.]

So much of the Lords Message considered accordingly.

Ordered,
That the Promoters of the Covent Garden Market Bill shall have leave to suspend proceedings thereon in order to proceed with that Bill in the next Session of Parliament, provided that the Agents for the Bill give notice to the Clerks in the Private Bill Office of their intention to suspend further proceedings before the close of the present Session and that all fees due on the Bill up to that date be paid;

Ordered,
That on the third day on which the House sits in the next Session the Bill shall be presented to the House;

Ordered,
That there shall be deposited with the Bill a Declaration signed by the Agents for the Bill, stating that the Bill is the same, in every respect, as the Bill at the last stage of its proceedings in this House in the present Session;

Ordered,
That the Bill shall be laid upon the Table of the House by one of the Clerks in the Private Bill Office on the next meeting of the House after the day on which the Bill has been presented and, when so laid, shall be deemed to have been read the first, second and third time and shall be recorded in the Journal of this House as having been so read;

Ordered,
That no further fees shall be charged in respect of any proceedings on the Bill in respect of which fees have already been incurred during the present Session;

Ordered,
That these Orders be Standing Orders of the House.—[Mr. Ioan L. Evans.]

To be communicated to the Lords.

PETITION

Nursery Education

Mrs. Renée Short: I have the privilege to present to Parliament a Petition for the Campaign for Nursery Education, which is linked with the Petition which collected over 90,000 signatures. The Petition reminds the House that nursery education for the preschool child was promised in the Education Act 1944 and that this was further reinforced by the Plowden Report. The Petition also calls for the withdrawal of Circular 8/60 of the Department of Science and Education so that local education authorities may be permitted to set up nursery classes within the resources of money and staff available, and it calls for the immediate development of nursery classes for educational priority areas. In order to further these ends,
Your Petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray ".

To lie upon the Table.

Oral Answers to Questions — EDUCATION AND SCIENCE

Schools and Colleges (Computer Facilities)

Mr. Gwilym Roberts: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what proportion of secondary schools and colleges have computer facilities; what proportion have access to computer facilities; and if he will take steps to encourage the linking of secondary schools and colleges to a central computer.

The Minister of State, Department of Education and Science (Mrs. Shirley Williams): About 10 per cent. of technical colleges have computers and many others have access to computer facilities; detailed information is not available for secondary schools. My Department encourages local education authorities, in planning computer provision at colleges, to bear in mind other educational needs which these facilities might meet.

Mr. Roberts: Does my hon. Friend not agree, however, that there is a tendency for colleges to install computers


and to get access to computers rather haphazardly, which may mean that they do not have the machines for the development of their courses? Does she not accept that the need is to provide central processing with terminal facilities in colleges and schools and—

Mr. Speaker: Order. Long questions mean fewer questions.

Mr. Roberts: Would my hon. Friend see whether some help can be obtained from Post Office data processing?

Mrs. Williams: We have a number of experiments going. For example, there is an experiment in the remote use of the university computer which is going ahead in Wales with Schools Council assistance. Similarly, there are experiments in the use of computers in technical colleges. But I remind my hon. Friend that we must be clear about the demand. At present about 100 technical colleges offer facilities for computer study. The difficulty is that we are not getting people from industry to fill the student places available.

School Buildings and Facilities (Use)

Mr. Gwilym Roberts: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will now send a circular to local authorities urging them to introduce shift systems in school and colleges to ensure that the buildings and facilities are used for the maximum number of hours per day and days per year.

The Secretary of State for Education and Science (Mr. Edward Short): I have no evidence that shift working is necessary in schools, but school premises are often used for educational, social and recreational purposes outside teaching hours. In colleges of education and further education establishments teaching facilities are in use during the day and evening and the premises are available during vacations for short courses, conferences and the like.

Mr. Roberts: Would my right hon. Friend not agree, however, that the very desirable movement away from part-time day release and part-time courses towards fulltime and sandwich diploma courses in schools is leading to less use of the premises in terms of time, because they are used mainly on a 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

day? Would he perhaps consider using a shift system for some of these fulltime and sandwich courses?

Mr. Short: There is no need for shift systems for the schools. As for the further education establishments, I suggest that my hon. Friend looks around a few of them to see how many hours a day and how many days a week they are in fact used.

Nursery Teachers and Assistants

Mrs. Renée Short: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what further proposals he has to increase the number of trained nursery teachers and nursery assistants.

The Minister of State, Department of Education and Science (Miss Alice Bacon): As regards nursery teachers, I would refer my hon. Friend to the Answer given to her on 20th June—Vol. 766, c. 1298–9—and add that one more college has announced a course covering the teaching of both nursery and infant age groups. I shall be consulting the authorities affected by the urban programme about their training arrangements for nursery assistants.

Mrs. Short: I am obliged to my right hon. Friend for that reply. Would she bear in mind that day training colleges can give courses particularly for teachers returning to teaching, such as refresher courses? Will she also bear in mind the need for the training of nursery assistants, for this could provide for the mature woman working with a trained nursery teacher.

Miss Bacon: I will bear all those points in mind. I assure my hon. Friend that there will be sufficient people to staff the nursery classes, which we hope will be in operation very soon, under the urban aid programme.

Religious Instruction

Mr. Peter M. Jackson: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science whether he intends to implement the recommendations of the Plowden Committee on Primary Education that parents should be told of their right to have their children excused from the religious act of worship and from religious instruction.

Mr. Edward Short: I have no evidence that parents generally are not aware of their rights, and I do not think that the Council's recommendation is a suitable matter for legislation at present. No doubt this reply will help bring it to the attention of parents.

Mr. Jackson: Is my right hon. Friend aware, however, of the precise terms of paragraph 567 of the Plowden Report, which clearly points out the disabilities which humanist parents suffer compared with non-humanist parents? Will he give an assurance to look again at this paragraph of the Report?

Mr. Short: I think that any humanist parent would be well aware of his rights, and I do not believe that there is any problem here. We should also guard against considering everything written in these monumental reports, of which there have been a large number since the war, as being holy writ.

Nursery Education

Mrs. Renée Short: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he has concluded his discussions with the National Union of Teachers about the introduction of nursery education in the priority areas; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Edward Short: I discussed nursery education with representatives of the National Union of Teachers in July. My colleagues and I have since announced the urban aid programme, in which nursery provision will play a substantial part.

Mrs. Short: May I take this opportunity of very warmly thanking my right hon. Friend for the steps he has taken towards providing nursery classes? I tender these thanks to him on behalf of those, both inside and outside the House, who have campaigned for many years for this step to be taken. I assure my right hon. Friend that he has taken a marvellous step forward. However, would he bear in mind the fact that children in need of nursery education do not necessarily live in priority areas? Is he aware that we hope that this is a first move in a series of steps towards the provision of comprehensive nursery education for all children aged from three to five?

Mr. Short: I agree with my hon. Friend that this is a substantial step forward. It is providing nursery education in areas where it is most needed. I agree, however, that such facilities are needed in other areas as well; and I assure her that we are looking into that matter, too.

Mr. J. E. B. Hill: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what progress is being made in the provisions of extra nursery education in the educational priority areas.

Miss Bacon: The first phase of the urban aid programme will enable nursery education to be extended in priority areas in 34 boroughs. The Government propose to discuss with the local authorities associations criteria for identifying areas of special need.

Mr. Hill: Does the Minister of State realise how grateful are those who are interested in nursery education for this significant advance? Can she say whether this new work is likely to include any teaching by nursery groups, as recommended by Plowden? Further, can she say what steps are being taken to survey and, if possible, measure the social and educational benefit of this new development?

Miss Bacon: The matters about which the hon. Gentleman has asked me are really matters for discussion with local authorities, and we shall be consulting them as to the best way in which they can deal with this development in the areas selected. As he knows, further areas are to be selected later. I will certainly bear in mind what he has said about a survey.

Miss Lestor: Whilst I agree entirely with the enthusiasm shown for the provision of this extra nursery education, which is the first advance we have had since the party opposite introduced a ban on nursery schools in 1960, can my right hon. Friend tell the House whether there are any plans under the Urban Development Act to use some of that money for the promotion of help to play groups in the areas before we get the fuller expansion of nursery schools?

Miss Bacon: My hon. Friend will remember that when my right hon. Friend


the Home Secretary made the announcement he said that children in general would benefit. The matter of the provision of play groups is not one for my Department, but comes in another sphere.

Integrated Curriculum

Mr. George H. Perry: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science how he intends to ensure that the right of excusal is safeguarded in schools using the integrated curriculum approach to teaching.

Mr. Edward Short: I would prefer to leave this to the good sense of parents and teachers. If there are complaints from parents, I will gladly look into them.

Mr. Perry: Would my right hon. Friend agree that the rights of parents under Section 25 of the Education Act, 1944, could be in danger in schools using the integrated curriculum approach?

Mr. Short: This is a genuine problem, because where there is an integrated curriculum subject barriers are broken down. However, teachers show a great deal of good sense in this matter and I suggest that we can safely leave it to them.

Private Computer Programming Schools

Mr. Hunt: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science how many private computer programming schools have made application to his Department for recognition as efficient; and in how many cases has such recognition been given.

Mrs. Shirley Williams: One. This is under consideration. I understand that a second school is likely to make a formal application. It is open to others to apply if they wish to do so.

Mr. Hunt: Is that not a disappointing response? Does not the reluctance of these private computer programming schools to submit to inspection by the Department indicate that, with one or two honourable exceptions, they are offering courses and services which are virtually worthless? Can the Department do more to warn potential students that they are wasting their time and money on these expensive courses?

Mrs. Williams: Yes, Sir. I appreciate the great efforts which the hon. Gentleman has put into clarifying the situation for students of computer studies. He will be encouraged to know that the City and Guilds of London Institute is exploring, with a number of computer programming schools, the possibility of establishing examinations which would be nationally recognised. Schools which are recognised by us and those which are not would be eligible; and I hope that that would mean good currency driving out the bad.

School Meals

Mr. Hunt: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what is the estimated annual cost of the decision to allow school meals to be provided free of charge for larger families.

Mr. Edward Short: Approximately £4 million in a full year.

Mr. Hunt: Is it not financial madness to make this provision entirely regardless of parental income? Is the Minister aware that this decision is costing Bromley Council an extra £36,000 a year, which means that if the borough is to adhere to the Government's directives for economy, there will have to be corresponding cuts in other and more essential and worthwhile services?

Mr. Short: I will bear in mind the fact that the hon. Gentleman is not in favour of this. If I have anything to announce or any other matter on which to comment, I will do so to the House.

Mr. McNamara: Is my right hon. Friend aware that to entitle the fourth child of any family to free school meals, whatever the child's age, is one of the most important ways adopted by the Department to get over the disabilities which pupils felt in the past about having free meals?

Mr. Short: I appreciate that there are differing opinions about this. Meals would be available free to children who are in need, in any case. This is a matter which we must keep in mind.

Mr. Longden: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he is satisfied with the operation of his recent scheme for free meals in schools; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Edward Short: I have this matter under constant review.

Mr. Longden: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that children of several parents who could perfectly well afford this meal are getting it free, whereas some who genuinely cannot afford it are not getting it under present conditions? May I welcome this statement that he is looking into it?

Mr. Short: I did not say that I was looking into it specifically. I said that I kept this matter constantly under review. If the hon. Gentleman knows of any children who ought to be getting free school meals, perhaps he would let me know. We have taken a considerable number of steps recently to bring this to the notice of parents.

Independent Schools

Miss Lestor: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what educational qualifications are required of the persons concerned before his Department registers an independent school.

Miss Bacon: None, Sir. But if, after the school has been inspected, I am not satisfied that efficient and suitable education is being provided, a notice of complaint is served on the school. If the matters complained of are not put right within a specified time, then, subject to appeal, the school may be struck off the register.

Miss Lestor: I thank my right hon. Friend for that reply. Would she agree that the standards of independent fee paying schools, particularly at the primary level, vary enormously? Is it not about time that we insisted on certain educational qualifications being held by people who set themselves up to charge fees for this type of education?

Miss Bacon: I agree that standards vary, and that is why we are at present taking steps to raise the general standard. My hon. Friend will be aware that the Plowden Committee recommended that head teachers of all independent schools should be qualified. We have already made an announcement to the effect that we are in favour of this; but it would, of course, require legislation.

Mr. R. C. Mitchell: What period usually elapses between the time when a new independent school is set up and the place being inspected by Her Majesty's inspectors?

Miss Bacon: I cannot give the precise time. As soon as we receive an application for registration we see that an inspection takes place as soon as possible.

School Building

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science why he has now cancelled school-building projects previously approved by him.

Miss Bacon: The major programmes for 1968–70 had to be recast when the resources for school building were reduced following the postponement of raising the school leaving age and the withdrawal of the associated building allocations. As a result, some projects previously authorised to start in those years or earlier are being deferred. If we had not controlled the backlog of unstarted projects, we should not have kept within the expenditure limits fixed for this year.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: As the three projects in the Royal Borough of Kingston-upon-Thames mentioned in my Question of 25th July were required to deal with schools which are already overcrowded and obsolescent and had nothing whatever to do with the question of raising the school leaving age, will the Minister look at these projects again on their merits?

Miss Bacon: Of these projects, one was in the 1966–67 programme and one was in the 1967–68 programme. If they had been regarded as being so urgent by the borough of Kingston-upon-Thames, that borough could have started on them at any time up to 31st March of this year.

Sir E. Boyle: Has not the right hon. Lady made a damaging admission? Is she not aware that there have often been perfectly good reasons why in the past projects have not been started in the year for which they have been approved? Is it not a serious matter now to withdraw a project for which approval was given some years ago?

Miss Bacon: The right hon. Gentleman will recall that we had several debates on this issue. Both he and I took part in them, and those discussions on at least one occasion went on into the early hours of the morning. The fact remains that, in spite of the withdrawal of the raising of the school leaving age money, more school building is going on now than at any time in our history.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: In view of the wholly unsatisfactory nature of the Minister's replies, I beg to give notice that I shall seek at an early opportunity in the new Session to raise this matter on the Adjournment.

Public Schools

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what has so far been the cost to public funds of the Newsom Committee on the Public Schools; and what further expenditure will be incurred by the future activities of this body.

Mr. Edward Short: The cost of the First Report of the Public Schools Commission was about £52,000. I cannot estimate the cost of the Second Report.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: Does that figure include the research work done for the Commission after it had already decided on the main lines of its recommendations? Would not this money have been much better spent on rebuilding obsolescent schools in the borough of Kingston-upon-Thames?

Mr. Short: That depends on the right hon. Gentleman's social priorities.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: Hear, hear.

Mr. Short: I would have thought that getting rid of one of the most divisive factors in our society was a matter for very high priority.

Mr. Christopher Price: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will now use his powers as Charity Commissioner for Educational Charities to ensure that the public schools conform to those charitable purposes for which they were founded.

Mr. Edward Short: No, Sir.

Mr. Price: Is my right hon. Friend aware that Part 2 of the Report of the

Public Schools Commission has disclosed that the charitable purpose of Eton College is to provide a school for children of good character and decent life who are poor and needy? Since the College has been disregarding its charter for many years, will my right hon. Friend respect the pious intentions of the founder and divert this endowment to the deprived primary schools in priority areas?

Mr. Short: I was very interested in this Question and took great trouble to look into it. I find that under the Endowed Schools Act, I have certain powers as Charity Commissioner for Educational Charities, but my powers are limited to taking action which is conducive to the advancement of learning. If I accepted my hon. Friend's proposal, I would insist that only Latin and grammar were taught at these schools, but I do not think that this would be regarded as being conducive to learning.

Mr. Doughty: Will the Secretary point out to his hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Christopher Price) that things have changed since the time of Edward VI?

Mr. Short: And I hope that in the near future they will change a good deal more, too.

Colleges of Art and Design

Mr. Christopher Price: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what progress he has made in his investigation into the diploma course and entrance qualifications for colleges of art and design.

Mrs. Shirley Williams: A joint committee of the National Advisory Council on Art Education and the National Council for Diplomas in Art and Design is examining the structure and content of art and design education in the light of the very wide range of submissions it has received in answer to a general invitation to those concerned, including students and staff, to give their views.

Mr. Price: Would not my hon. Friend agree that there is some urgency in geting on with this review, since it is to the credit of the students at Guildford and Hornsey that what they complained of was their curriculum; and that if something is not done about it quickly now we shall have more trouble again


this year owing to the intransigence of the two local authorities involved.

Mrs. Williams: The new Working Party is well aware of the urgency, but my hon. Friend will appreciate that if it wants to take evidence from any student, member of the staff and local authority wishing to give evidence it really cannot act extremely quickly. I understand that over 70 submissions have already come in, and a number are coming in at the present time.

Sir E. Boyle: Can the Minister say when she expects this report to be received? Is she aware that many of us, without necessarily associating ourselves with the comments of the hon. Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Christopher Price), feel that there is some urgency particularly in regard to the relationship, for example, between the fine arts and graphic art, and the feeling that art education is in a serious need of very rapid overhaul?

Mrs. Williams: I agree that there is much in art education that deserves careful review. I repeat that Sir William Coldstream, the Chairman of the Working Party, is well aware of the need for the most urgent action possible, but I would stress that unless people recognise the time given for the end of receipt of submissions, which was the end of July, it is difficult for Sir William to keep a timetable. Other people must help him to do so.

Single School-leaving Date

Mr. Marks: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what progress has been made in the discussions on the single school-leaving date; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Edward Short: My right hon. Friend, the First Secretary of State, has completed consultations with both sides of industry and reactions were, on the whole, favourable. I hope to make a further statement shortly.

Ealing (Secondary Education)

Mr. Molloy: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what proposals he has now received from the London Borough of Ealing regarding the future of secondary education in that borough; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Bidwell: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what revised plans have been submitted to him from the London Borough of Ealing to promote comprehensive secondary education within the whole of that borough; and if he will make a statement.

Miss Bacon: I am awaiting revised proposals from the authority.

Mr. Molloy: Is my right hon. Friend aware that there are now extant proposals to merge Walpole Grammar School and Southall Technical Grammar School in Ealing; and that this has caused immense disquiet to parents, pupils and staff—so much so that it was given prominence in the front page of The Times this morning? Would she agree to having an inquiry into the proposal, which is nothing but a compound of botchery and butchery?

Miss Bacon: There is a Question about these particular schools later in the Order Paper. As yet, I have had no proposals, and my hon. Friend can rest assured that if schools are to be closed they will be subject to public notice and submission under Section 13 of the 1944 Act.

Mr. Bidwell: Does not my right hon. Friend see that what is going on in the London Borough of Ealing in secondary education, and particularly in the stand-back of comprehensive school development in my part, in the Southall constituency, results from the quite wanton and callous Tory political jiggery-pokery in the area? Does not that reinforce the necessity for further legislation to deal with the problem?

Miss Bacon: I regret that the scheme which had been submitted was withdrawn but, as I say, I await the scheme which is to come from the London Borough of Ealing.

Mr. Kenneth Baker: As my constituency also falls within the London Borough of Ealing, may I ask whether the right hon. Lady would not agree that the previous Minister of Education was quite right to reject the proposal by the then council, which really was botched up comprehensive education, and does she not welcome the approach made by the new council, which is based on educational needs and not on political dogma?

Miss Bacon: At the time the council changed hands, my Department was in the process of discussing with the London borough of Ealing the reorganisation of secondary education. As the hon. Gentleman knows, these proposals were then withdrawn but I hope that we shall get a scheme from the London Borough of Ealing which is comprehensive, and which does not preserve the grammar schools as they are now.

Mr. Bidwell: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what consideration he is giving to the proposal of the London Borough of Ealing to change the character of two secondary schools and to amalgamate two grammar schools.

Miss Bacon: I have received no proposal of this nature from the Authority, but such a proposal would need to be submitted under Section 13 of the 1944 Education Act, as amended. It would also need to be the subject of public notice.

Mr. Bidwell: When my right hon. Friend considers these proposals, will she bear in mind that they are directly related to the stand-back of comprehensive education previously referred to at the Southall end of the Borough? Will she also bear in mind that part of these proposals might mean racial, segregational policies? Will she, particularly, agree to undertake to look hard and long at these proposals?

Miss Bacon: We have not yet received any proposals but when we do I will certainly look into all aspects of them.

University Buildings (Use)

Mr. Hooley: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what investigations are currently being undertaken by the University Grants Committee into the efficiency of the use of university buildings; and if he will undertake to publish the findings of such investigations.

Mrs. Shirley Williams: The main investigations into progress are being conducted by the Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals. The University Grants Committee is associated with research projects at University College,

London, and Southampton University, and has made studies of the use of catering facilities. For the purpose of the costing of new buildings and of their examination of development plans, it is also studying patterns of the use of premises and standards of accommodation. Some of its conclusions are reflected in the recommendations in its publication "Non-Recurrent Grants: Notes on Procedure".

Mr. Hooley: I welcome my hon. Friend's assurance that some investigations are taking place into this aspect, but would she accept that my concern is not so much with catering and that kind of thing as with the use of laboratories and the enormously expensive facilities in buildings put up for science and technology? Could she impress on the U.G.C. and the Committee of Vice-Chancellors the urgent need for detailed investigation into this aspect?

Mrs. Williams: I recognise my hon. Friend's great interest in the subject. I wish that he had asked the question of the Vice-Chancellors' Committee, because that Committee is at present undertaking studies into the utilisation of general purpose teaching accommodation, including the utilisation of laboratories in science and technology, and university refectories.

Mr. Lane: Would not my hon. Friend accept that the university authorities would look at the problem much more sympathetically if they were not perpetually suffering from Government stop-go policy about university buildings?

Mrs. Williams: My hon. Friend knows better than most hon. Members that in the Order Paper there is another question on that matter.

Teachers (Pay and Conditions)

Mr. Hector Hughes: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what representations he has received from teachers and trainees in schools under his authority for improved salaries, pension rights and conditions; what reply he has sent; and what action he proposes to take.

Miss Bacon: I receive representations from time to time from teachers and others on all aspects of teaching service.

Mr. Hughes: What steps is the Minister actually taking to make the remuneration of teachers comparable with the high cost of living in this age and to enable them to make children fit to live in this age of culture, learning and technology?

Miss Bacon: As my hon. and learned Friend is probably aware, teachers' salaries are negotiated in the Burnham Committee. A claim was formally presented last Friday and is now under consideration.

Modern Languages

Mr. Hector Hughes: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what steps he is taking to encourage the study of Russian, mid-European and Asiatic languages in schools with special relation to their professional, business and industrial uses.

Miss Bacon: The Schools Council is conducting a large scale curriculum development project in modern languages including Russian. There is also a Committee on Research and Development in Modern Languages which examines the need for research and development and stimulates them where necessary. The demands of industry and commerce for skills in particular languages are taken into account.

Mr. Hughes: I thank my right hon. Friend for that reply. Will she recognise a further aspect of the age in which we live, which is an international age? What steps is she taking to enable children to become fit to live and work in this international age?

Miss Bacon: I can assure my hon. and learned Friend that that is precisely what we are doing.

Miss Quennell: Can the right hon. Lady tell the House whether the Council's terms of reference include inquiries into the supply of teachers of Asiatic and Slavonic languages as well?

Miss Bacon: I could not answer that without notice. Perhaps the hon. Lady will put down a Question.

Arts Council Grants (Amateur Organisations)

Mr. Channon: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what criteria govern the Arts Council's policy towards grants to amateur organisations.

The Minister of State, Department of Education and Science (Miss Jennie Lee): The Arts Council gives grants to amateur choirs and music societies for employing professional soloists, coaches and conductors; and to one or two youth organisations of national significance. In this last category the Arts Council has just decided to give a grant to the National Youth Theatre.

Mr. Channon: Is the right hon. Lady aware that such a decision by the Arts Council will be widely welcomed but that there is considerable confusion, which is what has led me to ask this Question, because it has taken the National Youth Theatre such a long time to get any grant out of the Arts Council?

Miss Lee: The Arts Council must naturally be very careful before assisting an amateur organisation, because its job is to sustain the best in the arts and make the best more generally available. But it will be found that if, for instance, there is an ambitious youth musical group which engages professionals, it will try to help it in these special circumstances.

Southern Regional Arts Association

Mr. Channon: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what progress is being made with the formation of a Southern Regional Arts Association.

Miss Jennie Lee: A constitution was adopted in October, and a Director has been appointed who is expected to start work in January 1969. One of his first tasks will be a survey of the needs of the arts in the region.

Mr. Channon: May we have an assurance—I am sure that we may—from the right hon. Lady that her Department will give every possible assistance to try to get this regional arts association off the ground?

Miss Lee: We are most eager to do so, and so is the Arts Council. Everyone is trying to be helpful.

East Anglia

Dr. Gray: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science why in East Anglia only 39·7 per cent. of 15-year-olds stay on at secondary school as compared with 46·6 per cent. nationally.

Miss Bacon: Facilities for pupils to remain at school beyond the statutory leaving age exist in East Anglia as elsewhere. I could not say why more East Anglians exercise their right to leave. In recent years, however, staying on has been increasing more rapidly in East Anglia than in the country as a whole, and this trend is likely to continue.

Dr. Gray: Has my right hon. Friend noted that in its Report the East Anglian Planning Council states that it knows why this happens? It suggests that it is because of the limited opportunities which are available in the rural primary schools, particularly in Norfolk.

Miss Bacon: There is another feature. My hon. Friend will be interested to know that in 1966–67 a higher proportion of those aged between 15 and 17 were in fulltime further education in East Anglia than in any other region—5·74 per cent. compared with the national average of 4·25 per cent. That shows that many of the school leavers in East Anglia are going on to further education.

Sir H. Legge-Bourke: Will the right hon. Lady bear in mind that in many cases there is a need for some accommodation for those wishing to take further education in East Anglia who have to travel considerable distances to the seats of education which they attend?

Miss Bacon: That is another question, but I will look into it.

Dr. Gray: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science when he intends to designate an East Anglian college as a polytechnic.

Mrs. Shirley Williams: There are no proposals at present for the establishment of a polytechnic in East Anglia.

Dr. Gray: Has my right non. Friend taken note of the recommendation of the East Anglian Planning Council that the situation should be reviewed after five years and stressing that it is essential, in view of the future industrial development which will certainly take place there, for this polytechnic to be provided?

Mrs. Williams: Yes, Sir. At the time of the establishment of the polytechnics the regional advisory councils were asked for their advice. The East Anglian

Council advised that there was ground for the establishment of a polytechnic in Ipswich because of the expected expansion of the area. As my hon. Friend will appreciate, this was in anticipation and we have already agreed that we will review the situation in the light of developments in the Ipswich area.

Secondary School Children (Milk Supplies)

Mr. Marks: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science whether he will institute a survey of the nutritional effects of the ending of free school milk supplies to secondary school children.

Miss Bacon: The Chief Medical Officers' Committee on Medical Aspects of Nutrition has already initiated a survey of the nutrition of school children in Kent. In addition, the normal school medical records will enable any significant trends to be detected.

Mr. Marks: I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for that reply. Is she aware that many secondary school children leave home at about eight in the morning and do not get home until after six and have no opportunity for proper refreshment other than a school meal during the day? Is she aware that this would not be tolerated in industry and will she urge schools to provide adequate catering facilities for this lengthened day?

Miss Bacon: My hon. Friend has a point. Many secondary schools provide facilities for children to buy the kind of refreshment they need. My hon. Friend will know that when there was free milk for children in secondary schools more than 40 per cent. of the children did not take it.

Major Building Programmes

Mr. J. E. B. Hill: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will set out in tabular form the major building programmes for primary and secondary schools in each of the years 1965–66 to 1968–69 at both current and constant prices, and the amount in each programme devoted to basic needs and replacements and improvements, respectively, at both current and constant prices.

Miss Bacon: With permission, I will do so in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Mr. Hill: Is the right hon. Lady satisfied with the trend in the improvement factor, which is the best indicator of progress? If not, will she say what steps she is taking to make it more favourable?

Miss Bacon: I am not sure that I get the gist of the hon. Gentleman's question. I have given him a very long Answer. Perhaps he will look at it and then raise the matter again.

Mr. Christopher Price: Does not my right hon. Friend agree that the distinction between basic need and replacement is often inexact and sometimes unreal and has acted against the inner areas of big cities for many years? Will she look at

Schools Major Building Programmes(a)



Basic Needs
Improvement(b) and Replacement
Total



Costs at announcement
Present Costs
Costs at announcement
Present Costs
Costs at announcement
Present Costs



£m.
£m.
£m.
£m.
£m.
£m.


1965–66:


Primary
25·0
27·1
5·8
6·3
30·8
33·4


Secondary
25·3
27·4
23·9
25·9
49·2
53·3


Total
50·3
54·5
29·7
32·2
80·0
86·7


1966–67:


Primary
26·4
28·6
7·6
8·2
34·0
36·8


Secondary
22·6
24·5
22·4
24·3
45·0
48·8


Total
49·0
53·1
30·0
32·5
79·0
85·6


1967–68:


Primary
32·5
35·3
13·5
14·7
46·0
50·0


Secondary
32·3
35·0
15·2
16·5
47·5
51·5


Total
64·8
70·3
28·7
31·2
93·5
101·5


1968–69 (c):


Primary
24·1
4·4
28·5


Secondary
33·8
8·2
42·0


Total
57·9
12·6
70·5






Add
21·6 (c)







92·1


(a) The figures shown for 1968–69 relate to projects authorised to start in that year only. The figures for each of the previous years relate to the programmes as announced. The procedure then operating differed from current practice in that it allowed the carry-over of unstarted projects from year to year. This meant that projects actually started differed from those originally announced for the particular programme. An analysis of projects actually started in the earlier years is not available.


(b) Separate information about improvements and replacement is not available. The figures for 1967–68 and 1968–69 include the improvement element in projects which combine basic need with improvement. The figures for other years are for improvement or replacement-only projects.


(c) In addition to the £70·5(m) of starts in 1968–69 detailed in the table a further £21·6(m) of building resources in 1968–69 are committed to meet an excess of starts over the authorised total in 1967–68. This sum cannot be ascribed to particular projects and consequently cannot be analysed in terms of the question.


(d) The figures for 1968–69 take no account of the £16(m) of resources allocated for both major and minor projects in educational priority areas for the two years 1968–69 and 1969–70. The bulk of these major projects are for the replacement of old primary school buildings.

this matter to try to put more into replacement in future?

Miss Bacon: I am well aware that it has acted against the big cities, because my constituency has suffered very badly from it, but I think that my hon. Friend will recognise that we must give first priority to the provision of providing schools for those children who would otherwise have no school, for example, those in areas of new population. But we have made a start this year with the educational priority areas and both my right hon. Friend and I would like to get on as fast as possible with replacing some of the very old schools.

The following is the information:

Priorities

Mr van Straubenzee: asked the Secreatry of State for Education and Science what readjustment of priorities he is contemplating as between primary and secondary schools and higher education.

Mr. Edward Short: The proportion of total resources devoted to schools and higher education must depend to a large extent on the growth in numbers of pupils and students. Nor must we overlook the claims of further education generally. In the last four years schools have accounted for just over 60 per cent. of total expenditure on the three sectors; and expenditure on primary schools has increased a little faster than expenditure on secondary schools. Expenditure on school building will continue to increase and the capital programme for universities has been very substantially reduced.

Mr. van Straubenzee: Is that what the right hon. Gentleman's right hon. Friend had in mind when she made a reference to this matter in a speech, from which I cannot quote at Question time, in the House at the end of July, or did she have further steps in mind when she made that announcement?

Mr. Short: I am sure that there is perfect harmony between my right hon. Friend and myself on this and all other matters.

University Building

Mr. van Straubenzee: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science why the recent cuts in university building ordered by the University Grants Committee have not been made public.

Mr. Lane: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what is the value of university building work which has been stopped following the University Grants Committee letter to vice-chancellors in August 1968.

Mr. Clegg: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what changes in the economic situation between January and August 1968 necessitated further restrictions being placed on the University building programme.

Mr. Edward Short: Following their normal annual review of public expenditure and probable future calls on their resources, and not because of changes in the economic situation, the Government asked for the universities' building programme for 1968–69 to be reduced. The U.G.C. informed universities of this on 1st August. After consulting all universities, the Committee sent them revised programmes, reduced from £28·7 million to £18·7 million, on 26th September. No building work in progress has been stopped. It is not the Committee's practice to publish its communications to individual universities; but universities themselves are free to do so where, as was the case here, the letters are not confidential, and most did so.

Mr. van Straubenzee: While clearly understanding the confidential nature of the communications between the U.G.C. and individual universities, does the right hon. Gentleman not feel that it was, to put it mildly, unfortunate that such a major change in policy should not have been publicly announced, so that we could all form a judgment upon it?

Mr. Short: How the £10 million was saved was for the universities. The U.G.C. decided this and wrote to the individual universities.

Mr. Lane: Can the right hon. Gentleman offer any hope to universities that there will not be another setback in their plans, at least before the end of this decade?

Mr. Short: The universities have done extremely well over building. I understood that it was the policy of the party opposite to change the priorities of education to give a greater priority to the primary schools. I have been indicating that this is precisely what the Government are doing.

Sir E. Boyle: Was it not a very extraordinary thing to reduce the university building programme by that very high percentage, by £10 million, a week after Parliament had risen, with no statement by the Government? Secondly, is the right hon. Gentleman aware that, when we have talked about priorities this year, we have always been assuming existing progress? Is he aware that we feel that this was a very serious decision, to cut university building programmes by a


further £10 million at a time when the universities have not yet fully recovered from the moratorium imposed in 1965?

Mr. Short: The cut here has been in starts, fees and so on, which would save about £1 million this year, not £10 million. The right hon. Gentleman is more aware than most hon. Members of the need for a continuing review of public expenditure. This is what occurred here.

School-Leaving Age (Raising)

Sir E. Boyle: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science how many pupils will be added to secondary school rolls as a result of raising the school-leaving age in 1972–73, and assuming a single school-leaving date.

Mr. Edward Short: The current estimate is 287,000. With a single leaving date this figure would apply throughout the school year 1973–74.

Sir E. Boyle: Does this not emphasise the need for an early statement by the Government about the school building programme for 1970–71? Can the right hon. Gentleman give an undertaking that he will make an announcement about this before Christmas?

Mr. Short: I would not like to be tied to making one before Christmas. I fully realise the urgency of this, and intend to make a statement, not only on the building programme, but about the whole process of raising the school-leaving age. I have this very much in mind and will do so at the earliest possible moment.

Universities (Admissions)

Mr. Hornby: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what proportion of school leavers with two or more General Certificate of Education "A" levels entered university in 1956, 1962 and 1967.

Mrs. Shirley Williams: An estimated 69 per cent., 47 per cent. and 50 per cent. of school leavers with two or more "A" level passes entered universities in 1956, 1962 and 1967 respectively. The numbers doing so were about 18,000, 22,000 and 35,000.

Mr. Hornby: Does not than Answer lend additional support to the concern expressed in previous Questions about restrictions on the university building

programme? Is not a very serious situation about to face both universities and pupils trying to enter them, unless the Government speedily review their university building programme policy?

Mrs. Williams: Independent commentators in the educational sphere have pointed out that, because of the Government's response to the need to expand university places, there is less competition, or less intensive competition to get in now than there was in 1962. The figures that I have given have shown that this is so. It is, however, the case that the universities are hoping to maintain a rate of expansion which will bring them at least 20,000 beyond the Robbins target for 1971–72, regardless of the cuts which have been recently made in university building expenditure.

UNITED NATIONS

Mr. Judd: asked the Prime Minister whether he will pay an official visit to this autumn's meeting of the United Nations.

The Prime Minister (Mr. Harold Wilson): I have no plans to do so, Sir, but my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs was in New York from 7th to 15th October and addressed the General Assembly on 14th October.

Mr. Judd: Does my right hon. Friend recognise that there is widespread respect throughout Britain for the work carried out at the U.N. by the noble Lord, the Minister of State, but will my right hon. Friend also accept that one of the best ways of demonstrating our commitment to the United Nations is a personal visit by the Prime Minister whenever possible?

The Prime Minister: I have made very many visits there, not always when the Assembly was sitting. I did address the Assembly on one occasion, although I am sorry to say that some of my African friends greeted that with a walkout, because of our refusal to use force in Rhodesia. Certainly I keep in very close touch with the Secretary-General, whom I see whenever he comes to this country. I like to visit the United Nations whenever I can.

Sir H. Legge-Bourke: Whoever it is who speaks for Her Majesty's Government at the autumn meeting of the United Nations, would the Prime Minister give an assurance that it will be made abundantly clear that the Government do not subscribe to the views expressed about Rhodesia in the latest manifesto of the United Nations Association?

The Prime Minister: As to our responsibilities for those who speak for us at the United Nations, my noble Friend, Lord Caradon, has the fullest confidence of the Government, and I think of both sides of this House. As to the United Nations Association, I applaud its enthusiasm, but somewhat regret its sense of direction. On the point raised in the statement issued by the leadership of the U.N.A., the Government's position is well known and has been repeatedly stated in this House.

Mr. Shinwell: Has my right hon. Friend observed that recently suggestions have been made by several hon. Members, one that he should go to India, another that he should go to Australia, another that he should go to Russia, and I believe, the suggestion was made that he should also go to Peking. Does he detect anything sinister in this?

The Prime Minister: No, Sir. I always take these proposals in the spirit in which they are made. There will be plenty of time over the next few years to visit all these places.

QUESTIONS (NORTHERN IRELAND)

Mr. Whitaker: asked the Prime Minister whether he will appoint a Minister to answer Questions on matters involving Her Majesty's Government's responsibilties in Northern Ireland.

The Prime Minister: My right hon. Friends and I already answer Questions on those matters relating to Northern Ireland which engage our Ministerial responsibility.

Mr. Whitaker: Is my right hon. Friend aware that a great number of British people cannot see the equity of being taxed to heavily subsidise the Stormont Government while apparently being unable to redress grievances in that country?

Will the Prime Minister, therefore, immediately set up a Royal Commission which will unemotionally and impartially investigate allegations, and rectify any abuses that exist?

The Prime Minister: I should like to consider what my hon. Friend has said. The frustrations that he has mentioned are among the subjects which I shall be discussing, together with the Home Secretary, with Captain O'Neill when he comes over in a few days' time.

CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (SPEECH)

Sir Knox Cunningham: asked the Prime Minister whether the public speech made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer on the British Broadcasting Corporation television on 15th July on the economic situation represents the policy of Her Majesty's Government.

The Prime Minister: Yes, Sir.

Sir Knox Cunningham: Thank you.

RHODESIA

Mr. Biggs-Davison: asked the Prime Minister what progress he has made during the past three months in reaching an agreement with the Rhodesian Prime Minister on a constitutional settlement.

Mr. Kenneth Lewis: asked the Prime Minister whether he will now seek a meeting with Mr. Smith in order to secure settlement of the Rhodesian problem on the basis of the Six Principles.

The Prime Minister: I have nothing at present to add to the speech I made in this House on 22nd October.

Mr. Biggs-Davison: Would the Prime Minister reaffirm that Rhodesia is a problem for the United Kingdom, and will Her Majesty's Government make it clear that it is not for the United Nations or any other Power to obstruct a settlement and the ending of sanctions against Rhodesia?

The Prime Minister: I confirm what I have said many times, that while this is a matter for the United Kingdom and the responsibility of this House, it is a matter of deep international concern because of what has happened over the


last few years. With regard to the question of sanctions, if that is what the hon. Gentleman has in mind, I have nothing to add to an Answer which I gave to the hon. Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Edward M. Taylor) on 15th October.

Mr. Michael Foot: My right hon. Friend says that he has nothing to add to the statement which he made earlier. Will he recall that on that occasion he did not deal with the matters arising from the forms of intimidation and threats that are being operated in Rhodesia against citizens for whom we are responsible and which were described by the Prime Minister following his return from "Tiger"? Will he undertake, before we have any further dealings with this régime, to describe how these police state methods are to be stopped so that people in Rhodesia may have the right to express their feelings freely on the proposals?

The Prime Minister: My hon. Friend is wrong. I dealt with this question. I am totally opposed to intimidation, from whatever source it comes—I have said that on a number of occasions in relation to Rhodesia—whether from nationalist pressures, some of which are genuine, sincere and democratic, others of which are operated in a highly undemocratic way, or from within the regime or police forces associated with it.

Mr. Heath: Can the Prime Minister yet say when he is likely to be able to give an indication to the House or publicly about his own views of Mr. Smith's reply and whether or not the Minister without Portfolio is going to Salisbury?

The Prime Minister: Not immediately. The House will recognise that we must have adequate time to study the reply which has been received. As soon as we are in position to make a statement to the House, it will be made.

FLOOD WARNINGS

Mr. Ellis: asked the Prime Minister which Minister is responsible for the issue of flood warnings to the general public.

The Prime Minister: In England and Wales, flood warnings are issued to the general public by the police on advice

from river authorities. My right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food has primary responsibility because of his concern for the flood protection activities of river authorities. In Scotland, the local authorities are responsible for the warning systems and the initial warnings come from sources such as the Hydro-Electric Board; Ministerial responsibility in Scotland rests with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State.

Mr. Ellis: Does my right hon. Friend accept that at the time of the last floods information was available in various people's hands and significant warning could have been given which would have enabled people to take their furniture upstairs? The difficulty is that there are about four Departments involved. What we want is the coordination of information so that it can be used, and to do this one Minister is needed to knock the organisation into shape.

The Prime Minister: I am afraid that there are different responsibilities, and this was shown by the very prompt reaction made at the time of floods in the South-East. I dealt with this matter at some length during Question Time last week, and I said that my right hon. Friend the Minister of Housing and Local Government was taking up with other Ministers, with the police, with river authorities and everyone else concerned the steps which need to be taken as soon as water piles up in one area of a river authority to ensure that a warning is given right down the line, which is what my hon. Friend is concerned about.

Mr. Buck: Would not the Prime Minister agree that the experiences resulting from the flooding during the summer illustrate the crying need for a civil emergency force? Why will he not assist the volunteers who are prepared to do this sort of work at no cost to the taxpayer?

The Prime Minister: My impression was that the reaction of the local authorities—and I am thinking particularly of the most recent cases in the South-East—and the speed with which the service departments were able to operate on the invitation of the county authorities concerned showed a very fine and flexible response. The suggestion which the hon. Gentleman has in mind might slow down rather than speed up the work.

NIGERIA (SUPPLY OF ARMS)

Mr. Frank Allaun: Q7. Mr. Frank Allaun asked the Prime Minister if he will seek to end the growing slaughter and starvation in Biafra by inviting the Prime Ministers of the three other countries still permitting arms supplies to either side to agree to a joint arms ban and to cooperate in an airlift of food and medical supplies.

The Prime Minister: No, Sir. I do not think that such an approach could achieve the results my hon. Friend desires.

Mr. Allaun: What valid objection is there to at least making the attempt? Could not we ask the Lagos Government to consider a ceasefire before the suffering goes to too great lengths?

The Prime Minister: My hon. Friend knows that time and again we have tried to achieve a cease-fire—and a ceasefire on both sides is required. I feel that the present situation has been aggravated by the intervention of other nations and of supplies of munitions from other nations in the past three or four weeks. But not only the latest initiative of my noble friend Lord Shepherd but the painstaking activities of His Majesty the Emperor of Ethiopia and the work of the O.A.U. have been directed towards a ceasefire. The O.A.U. at any rate does not seem to be in much doubt about where responsibility for the failure to get a ceasefire lies.

Mr. David Steel: The Prime Minister says that the situation is bedevilled by major Powers supplying arms to either side. Why do the Government still refuse to take an initiative to try to stop this intervention?

The Prime Minister: The initiative we have taken is to try to get a cease-fire. There is a refusal to get a cease-fire, and the responsibility for that is fairly clear to most hon. Members who are not completely dominated by their support for one side. That is the initiative we should have taken and it is the initiative we have taken.

Mr. James Griffiths: Can my right hon. Friend confirm or deny a statement in the Press that the Federal régime is now seeking to negotiate with Her Majesty's Government for increased supplies of arms for

the last stage of the war in Nigeria? In view of the certainty that this last stage will be horrifying, may I appeal to my right hon. Friend to use all his influence with both sides—and I will join him in this—in seeking a ceasefire before it is too late?

The Prime Minister: We have been trying to secure a ceasefire. It is not for me to confirm or deny statements in the Press, although I have seen the statement in the Press that already very substantial arms supplies have been negotiated between the Federal Government and Soviet Union. But the best guarantee against what the whole House seeks to avoid, namely, genocide or a massacre as a result of the last stages of the fighting, is our success in securing the agreement of the Federal Government to the appointment of international observers, including a very distinguished military officer from this country. The reports which we are getting are more reassuring than some of us might have expected two or three months ago.

Mr. Thorpe: Since the Prime Minister said that the situation is bedevilled by continued supplies of arms by any country to Nigeria, can he say whether he regards Britain's activity in continuing to supply arms as assisting the process or the reverse?

The Prime Minister: It is not assisting the process of bedevilment, if that is what the right hon. Gentleman has in mind. We have taken a consistent view throughout the whole tragic history before and since the fighting began, in trying to get the two sides to the conference table. We were in the last stage of this situation and we were more successful than we might have hoped in preventing genocide, although there were one or two unfortunate incidents on which we have had reports from the observers, but this is not affected either way by the traditional rôle of Her Majesty's Government in supplying to the Federal Government.

Mr. James Johnson: Whatever may be legitimately said in the House about the actions of Her Majesty's Government, is it not a fact that we were near some form of settlement not long ago but for the intervention of the French Government and French supplies? Would my


right hon. Friend think again about conferring with the French on the matter of supplies to the secessionists on the other side?

The Prime Minister: The difficulty about conferring with the French is that they deny that there are supplies coming from France. We have our own information on this question, and so have most hon. Members, I think. There was a very good chance of a settlement on the basis and on the information which reached us about the possible attitude of Biafrans. My noble friend, Lord Shepherd, on my instructions, went to Lagos to discuss this matter, but by the time that he got there Colonel Ojukwu had said that they would fight to the bitter end. He was helped in this by additional and new supplies coming, for whatever motive, from other countries.

Captain W. Elliot: Would the Prime Minister agree that the supply of arms to Nigeria is beginning to assume an ominous resemblance to the situation surrounding the supply of arms to Spain in 1937? Would it not be wiser for us to be neutral in this matter?

The Prime Minister: We have debated this many times. I cannot accept the doctrine of neutrality in this matter because here we have a Commonwealth country facing a secessionist revolt. What we have tried to do, while still maintaining our relations with the Federal Government, is to bring both sides together to avoid the bloodshed. The line which we have taken in recognising what is the real Government in Nigeria was overwhelmingly accepted by the O.A.U. at its recent conference. I am rather surprised that some hon. Members disagree with the view of the O.A.U. as to whom the Government of Nigeria really are.

MINISTER OF TECHNOLOGY (SPEECH ON BROADCASTING)

The following Questions stood upon the Order Paper:

Mr. WILLIAM HAMILTON: To ask the Prime Minister whether the public speech made by the Minister of Technology in Bristol on 18th October on the control of broadcasting in our modern society represents Government policy.

Mr. EDWARD M. TAYLOR: To ask the Prime Minister if the speech by the Minister of Technology in Bristol on 18th October regarding the British Broadcasting Corporation represents the policy of Her Majesty's Government.

Sir G. NABARRO: To ask the Prime Minister whether the public speech on broadcasting, delivered at Bristol by the Minister of Technology, on Friday, 18th October, 1968 represents Government policy.

The Prime Minister (Mr. Harold Wilson): With permission I will answer this Question and Questions Nos. Q9 and Q12 together.
As my right hon. Friend made clear he was expressing his own personal views on a constituency occasion. His speech in no sense purported to be a statement of Government policy.

Mr. Taylor: Does the Prime Minister appreciate the seriousness of a public speech of this sort by a Cabinet Minister on such a vital issue as broadcasting freedom? If the Minister of Technology was not flying a kite for the Prime Minister in his apparent vendetta with the B.B.C., will the right hon. Gentleman at least repudiate the reported statement that broadcasting is too important to be left to the broadcaster?

The Prime Minister: My right hon. Friend said in his speech—this has not had as much publicity as the parts which have excited the hon. Member:
I am not proposing direct or indirect Government control of the mass media, to which I would be wholly opposed".

Nor is there any vendetta with the B.B.C.'

Hon. Members: Oh.

Mr. Speaker: Order. Mr. Ashley.

Mr. Ashley: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the Government's reaffimation of the independence of the B.B.C. will be warmly welcomed? Is he also aware, however, that the Chairman of the Governors of the B.B.C. has said that its independence was in doubt in both 1926 and 1956? Would my right hon. Friend therefore agree that although representation should legitimately be made by all parties in this House, it should not be shrouded in secrecy but should be made and answered in public?

The Prime Minister: I do not remember 1926, but I remember 1956. Certainly, recent disclosures here suggest a situation in which hon. Members opposite should be singing very small on these questions.
There is no question here about the independence of the B.B.C. There is adequate machinery for complaints by any member of the general public, by the Opposition, by the Government, or by any political party. I am perfectly satisfied that this machinery is adequate. Indeed, I am able to record that I have received a large number of apologies from the B.B.C. for breaches of its practices and principles, apologies not in cases that we took the initiative in raising with the Corporation.

Mr. Dance: Does the Prime Minister agree that in view of recent events he should look into the whole question of setting up a completely independent—I repeat, independent—viewers' and listeners' association?

The Prime Minister: These matters have been considered in the past. There was a suggestion some years ago—I see that it has been revived recently—of having a television council comparable to the Press Council to which complaints could be addressed. In the case of commercial television, we have an Act which was approved by Parliament and of which the Authority is the custodian. The fact that it is there is to some extent a deterrent against possible breaches of the Act. In the case of the B.B.C, we have the Governors.
At this stage, although I am prepared to listen to submissions from the hon. Member or other hon. Members, I do not see a case for a television council comparable to the Press Council, because the safeguards exist in the one case under legislation and in the other case under the Charter.

Mr. Molloy: There is another side to this question. Would not my right hon. Friend agree that while probably all of us in this House would defend to the limit the right of the B.B.C. to be free, at the same time, if the tough newscasters and tough interviewers hit individuals and corporations, as is their right, there is something distasteful about the fact

that there is immediate complaint if somebody wants to hit back at them and they start appealing to the referee?

The Prime Minister: I think that the concern of this House, irrespective of party, is for neutrality, independence and impartiality. Any hon. Member, any party, has the right to complain when they think that this is infringed, as from time to time it certainly appears that it may be being infringed.
As for tough interviewers, I would have thought that any experienced Member of this House, as, I am sure, the Leader of the Opposition will confirm from his experience, only gains to the extent that the interviews are tough. I think that most of us who are trained in Parliamentary batsmanship gain from fast bowling from these interviewers. Certainly, none of us has anything to lose from toughness, even rudeness, by interviewers.

Mr. Bryan: Is the Prime Minister aware that his answer might be acceptable to the House in respect of any Minister except, perhaps, the Minister of Technology, with all the weight which he has as ex-Postmaster-General? Therefore, even if we are to have no Government interference with broadcasting, will the Prime Minister give us his view on the Minister of Technology's idea of some other nongovernmental authority which should have power to override the B.B.C. in choice and form of programme?

The Prime Minister: I do not think that that was at all suggested by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Technology, who speaks, of course, with authority as a former Postmaster-General, just as the hon. Member speaks with authority as shadow Postmaster-General. I do not think that my right hon. Friend suggested that.
My answer to a previous question makes it plain that I would need a lot more arguments to be produced before I felt that there was need for a change from the custodianship of the Independent Television Authority, on the one hand, and the Governors of the B.B.C, on the other.

Mr. Tomney: Does not my right hon. Friend realise that all that is really involved here is the continuing story of "Wedgie" Benn, who staggered from


calamity to calamity and seems to survive?

The Prime Minister: I note what my hon. Friend suggests about my right hon. Friend, whose reputation in technological matters during these two years has grown enormously—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] —with all parties—as has been shown by the independent comments on the great success of the Ministry of Technology in the restructuring of industry.

Mr. Hogg: While I would accept certainly a good deal of what the Prime Minister has said about the position of the Governors of the B.B.C., would not the right hon. Gentleman accept, too, that I he relationship between the Governors and the Director-General as an official has always and from the first been a matter of controversy? Is not part of this trouble, which has arisen for some time, that the Governors have not, on the whole, exerted the authority which Parliament originally intended them to do?

The Prime Minister: That is certainly an arguable thesis. There may be some reason for speaking as the right hon. and learned Gentleman has done. I think that the right answer to him is that having appointed the Governors—and there has been, I think, no criticism of the impartiality of the Governors themselves—we must leave it to them to take responsibility for carrying out their duties under the Charter and as Parliament has always intended.

Mr. Michael Foot: Returning to the question of the Prime Minister's alleged vendetta with the B.B.C., may I ask whether he would not agree that the worst affliction that he has imposed on the B.B.C. is the appointment of Lord Hill as Chairman of the Board of Governors? Would he not take it from me that we are all very glad to hear that it is the intention neither of himself nor of any other member of the Government to add injury to insult?

The Prime Minister: I would have thought that the appointment of Lord Hill, with his vast experience and his highly successful administration of the I.T.A., and the neutrality shown by the I.T.A., would carry the confidence of most hon. Members, of all parties.
With regard to the alleged vendetta, which dates from a refusal of mine to appear in a particular programme, which was thoroughly justified—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] Certainly. If anybody wants to ask me about it, I will tell him why, too. [HON. MEMBERS: "Come on."] If it is an inalienable right of the television authorities to be free of Parliamentary interference, it is also an inalienable right of any human being not to go on television if he does not want to.

Dr. Winstanley: Would the Prime Minister agree that it is precisely because broadcasting is so important that it must remain in the hands of broadcasters? If he accepts that public criticisms are preferable to attempts to influence programme content behind the scenes, will he undertake that his party, at least, will make no behind-the-scenes attempts to influence programme content?

The Prime Minister: Responsibility must lie with the Governors and with the Authority in this matter. So far as broadcasters themselves are concerned, there have been complaints in the past—for example, about their being judge and jury and prejudging even cases in the courts. This is a matter for the Authority or the Governors to deal with.
So far as political parties are concerned, there is adequate machinery here. It is some years since I suggested, speaking for the party I represent, that we would be willing, if other parties would agree, to publish and register any complaints made by us in respect of broadcasts, if the Conservative and other parties would do the same.

Mr. Heffer: Would my right hon. Friend not agree that there is much too much sensitivity on the part of the mass media when they are criticised? Is it not quite clear that those who are being criticised by the mass media have the right—a right which the whole country has—to criticise back? Is it not unfortunate that my right hon. Friend the Minister of Technology's speech was not reported in full in the various newspapers of the country, and that the first part of it made it perfectly clear that at no time was he arguing for Government control of the B.B.C. or of any other mass media?

The Prime Minister: Newspapers must be responsible for deciding the news value of what they print. I do not remember seeing many of the reports of the particular quotations from my right hon. Friend's speech to which I have just drawn attention. So far as sensitivity is concerned, I did express in a recent television broadcast my surprise that these tough, hard-bitten broadcasters and journalists, who are not usually very slow in dishing it out, should be as sensitive as some people say they are. I do not think for a moment that they are so sensitive; they enjoy taking it as well as giving it.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that, quite apart from the merits or demerits of the Minister's speech, or indeed of the Minister, the serious issue is that the Prime Minister appears to be accepting that members of his Cabinet may make on issues of general policy public statements which are not the policy of the Government, and yet retain their offices? Has he taken into account the serious consequence of his allowing this breach of the old constitutional position?

The Prime Minister: My right hon. Friend is free to speculate—whether that is wise or not is a matter for him and not for me—in this matter, but the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Kingston-upon-Thames (Mr. Boyd-Carpenter), who is a very longstanding member of Cabinets, between 1951 and 1964, should be the last person to talk about private enterprise speeches by colleagues.

Mr. Jay: Would the Prime Minister explain what puzzles some of us, why the Minister of Technology apparently exempted Independent Television from the charges of sensationalism of which he complained?

The Prime Minister: I do not think that it was, in fact, what my right hon. Friend was saying. Indeed, a significant part of his speech was directed against the feeling which is expressed in some quarters that the public service corporation, which is the B.B.C., should be dismembered and handed over to commercial interests. I think that the lesson of his speech was to support the public service while leaving the commercial side free to do what it has to do under the Television Act.

Mr. Hastings: Would the right hon. Gentleman now tell us why he refused to take part in the programme which started the alleged vendetta?

The Prime Minister: If the hon. Gentleman is referring to my exercise of the right not to broadcast, if one does not want to, at the end of the last General Election, during that election, as will be remembered, there was a good deal of interest in the mounting of a particular type of political programme. When I discovered that the B.B.C. was discussing with the Conservative Party the form of that programme, and, having agreed with that party, was putting it to me afterwards, I thought that there was a case for not broadcasting. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."]. If the hon. Gentleman has any doubts about that he may look at the statement made by the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition in Liverpool, two Thursdays before polling day, when he said, "The B.B.C. has now produced a perfect formula. Will the Prime Minister accept it?" It was not put to me until two days later.

Mr. Brian Parkyn: Would not the Prime Minister agree that my right hon. Friend's Bristol speech was a speech of considerable importance, raising some really basic issues concerning the sovereignty of this House and democracy itself, and that if only people read the speech they would recognise that many of the assertions made about the speech are not true?

The Prime Minister: Yes. I think that it is important to read the speech as a whole; which I have done, now at any rate. I have also read, as I hope the House has, the very deeply considered speech of my right hon Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services—then Lord President of the Council, as he was—on Monday night, which I thought a very well-thought-out speech on all the principles. There was a great deal which was common to both speeches.
I think that that was what my right hon. Friend the Lord President of the Council was complaining about, but my right hon. Friend the Lord President of the Council did state very clearly the Government's position in his speech, the rest of which was, of course, a lecture rather than a statement of Government policy.
I would hope that it would be regarded by the whole House as a very fair statement of the way we feel about the television situation and its independence. I think that all of us feel sometimes that deep issues, which we debate here with so much thought and in so much depth, are sometimes treated by the television companies—all of them—with some degree of triviality and over-personalisation to the nation as a whole.

DEMONSTRATIONS, CENTRAL LONDON (27th OCTOBER)

The following Questions stood upon the Order Paper:

Mr. WALL: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what steps he is taking to control known agitators in view of the widespread incitement to violence now taking place in preparation for demonstrations in London later this month.

Mr. DEEDES: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what consultations he has had with the Commissioner of Police for the Metropolis about the demonstration planned for 27th October in Central London; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. GOODHART: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what special protective equipment will be issued to the Metropolitan Police before the planned demonstration on 27th October in view of the probability that policemen on duty will be injured.

Mr. LIPTON: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what restrictions he will impose on marchers in Central London on 27th October next.

The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. James Callaghan): I will, with permission, Mr. Speaker, now answer Questions Nos. 67, 72, 80 and 83.
The Vietnam Solidarity Campaign and other bodies have sponsored a series of demonstrations this week which are intended to culminate in a demonstration in London on 27th October. The organisers of the main procession have agreed with the police that the route should be from the Embankment near Charing Cross, by Ludgate Circus, Fleet Street and the Strand to Whitehall. Some

of those taking part propose to part company with the main procession at Trafalgar Square and proceed to Grosvenor Square.
This series of demonstrations has been preceded by a spate of advance publicity and it seems possible that Sunday's procession will be attended by large numbers of people. The organisers have proclaimed their intentions that the demonstration shall be peaceful, but rumours have been spread about the intention of certain hooligan elements to use violence or to try to provoke the police into using violence, and these have led to proposals that the procession should be prohibited.
I have considered this situation with the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis, but he does not think it necessary to use his power under the Public Order Act, 1936 to prohibit the demonstration. He will have a large force of police officers on duty, who will seek to facilitate peaceful demonstration. By using their traditional methods, they will enforce the law and arrest alleged offenders. Penalties on conviction are matters for the courts, which have power to impose sentences of imprisonment for a variety of offences.
I have issued instructions that foreign students and other aliens with convictions for violence shall not be allowed to come here to take part in the demonstration. Aliens who do take part are expected to observe the law; if they do not do so, they must take the consequences.
I have thought carefully about the general issues of freedom and order. There is an evident risk where large numbers of people gather. But I believe that the great majority of those who take part will wish to avoid violence. My conclusion is that, in the absence of plain evidence of widespread violence, interference with the right to hold meetings, even of this size, would be a bad precedent which would endanger freedom in this country.
The demonstrators themselves should be in no doubt that the general public expects from them a peaceful, well-conducted and orderly demonstration. Otherwise, they will forfeit sympathy both for their cause and for themselves.

Mr. Deedes: While, personally, I agree strongly that it would be a mistake to call the march off, may I ask for an


assurance that, bearing in mind the estimates the right hon. Gentleman will have got from the police of the balance of forces likely to be involved, conditions can and will be imposed on the organisers to ensure as far as possible that matters do not get out of hand?

Mr. Callaghan: Yes, Sir. That is the intention of the Commissioner in seeking discussions with the organisers of the demonstration, who carry a very heavy responsibility if they call large numbers of people together. It is the intention of the police to try to agree routes—as they have, indeed, already done—and the conditions under which the meetings are held so that there shall be as little interference with the rights of ordinary citizens as possible.

Mr. Goodhart: In view of the possibility that deliberate attempts will be made to injure policemen, what special protective equipment will be issued to those on duty?

Mr. Callaghan: I have discussed this matter with the Commissioner, in view of the hon. Gentleman's Question, but he does not believe that there is need for special protective equipment. The police intend to stick to their traditional methods of controlling processions and crowds.

Mr. Lipton: While upholding the right to demonstrate and to express opposition to the war in Vietnam, may I ask my right hon. Friend whether he is aware that the motley crew of crackpots who are responsible for this demonstration are quite incapable of organising a peaceful march? They are already squabbling among themselves and will probably be fighting among themselves on Sunday. In these circumstances, while approving the right to demonstrate, is it not taking a great risk to allow a series of marches to take place in various parts of London next Sunday?

Mr. Callaghan: If I had different advice from responsible quarters I would consider it, but the most responsible advice on which I can rely is that of the Commissioner. Although he accepts, as I do, that there is a risk in this matter, nevertheless we believe that the balance lies in allowing the demonstration and the march to take place rather than in

running the risks which would also be inherent in banning it.

Mr. Hogg: While I accept that the Home Secretary and the Commissioner must make up their own minds in the light of the material they have available and, therefore, accept full responsibility for the arrangements in that sense, may I press the right hon. Gentleman on the lines of what has been put to him by the hon. Member for Brixton (Mr. Lipton)?
Does the right hon. Gentleman accept that there is a profound difference between the legitimate right to protest about the war in Vietnam—which very few Members in this House, whatever they think about it, would wish to interfere with—and the exploitation for an ulterior motive of that feeling in order to assemble or mobilise, as I believe the phrase is, a crowd of such proportions and with such disparity with the police that this must, of itself, give rise to anxiety as to the possibility of personal injury and damage to property?
Does not the right hon. Gentleman accept that it is this distinction which lies at the root of the anxiety about this demonstration?

Mr. Callaghan: I think that everything I have said so far conveys that I have anxieties about this procession and meeting on Sunday. I have had to consider the consequences very carefully. As I have said, the overwhelming number of people attending the demonstration are likely to be those concerned passionately with the issue of peace in Vietnam. They must be careful not to allow themselves to be exploited by a very tiny minority of people who are basically not concerned with that issue, but with the undermining or destruction of the very institutions which enable protests to be made.

Mr. Peter M. Jackson: I congratulate my right hon. Friend on his statement, and on the Press statement put out over the weekend, but would he not agree that the most efficacious way in which this possible conflict could be prevented is by persuading his right hon. Friends on the Front Bench to dissociate themselves from the policy in Vietnam?

Mr. Callaghan: That does not arise within my direct responsibility for the procession on Sunday. We all have our


views about the war. I know of no one who does not want the conflict brought to an early conclusion, but the question I have to address myself to is whether, by taking action that would prevent people from protesting, I would be more likely to endanger the Queen's peace than ensure it. The conclusion I have reached is that I should not take such action.

Mr. John Smith: While protecting the freedom of people to demonstrate, as he should, will the right hon. Gentleman also bear in mind and protect the freedom of my constituents to spend a quiet Sunday in and around their own homes—[Interruption.] Yes, in and around their own homes; this demonstration is not taking place in Pompeii—free from the fear of injury and loss?

Mr. Callaghan: I think that it is a consequence of all processions—whether they be the Lord Mayor's Show in the City or the Durham Miners' Gala, both of which are great national traditional processions—that the peace of those living on the routes is disturbed. That is a natural result of processions.

Mr. Winnick: Is my right hon. Friend aware that believers in democratic rights are grateful that he has resisted the strong pressures to ban the march? Does not he agree that, if the march had been banned, it would have been playing into the hands of the more irresponsible elements who want a violent flare-up on Sunday?

Mr. Callaghan: I am aware that many people who are not so strongly concerned with the issue of Vietnam would have found it very welcome indeed if I had banned the procession—and not for the reasons most people have in mind.

Mr. Crowder: Is the Home Secretary satisfied that the Commissioner will have sufficient reserves at his disposal on Sunday if by any chance this demonstration should get out of hand?

Mr. Callaghan: It is always a matter of speculation as to how large a group is likely to assemble on such an occasion. The Commissioner has all the men at his disposal that he thinks he would need, and he is satisfied within the reasonable bounds of possibility that they

are sufficient to facilitate a peaceful demonstration.

Mr. Lubbock: Is it not unfortunately true that, whatever the size of the demontration, the Government are unlikely to change their policy on Vietnam? Would it not be a good thing, therefore, if people who are considering this procession were to bear that in mind and consider other ways of bringing their protest to the attention of hon. Members who may be like-minded with themselves? The best way of ensuring that the demonstration is peaceful lies in the closest possible cooperation between the organisers and the police, which, fortunately, has taken place so far.

Mr. Callaghan: I agree with the hon. Gentleman's last sentence. As regards the first part of his supplementary question, there is no prospect that the Government will depart from their view that they desire to see the conflict brought to an end on honourable terms as quickly as possible.

Mr. Shinwell: Would it not have a salutary effect on the morale of those who are determined to oppose the American attitude towards Vietnam if those hon. Members who agreed with the marchers attended the demonstration and used their great influence to prevent anything in the nature of violence?

Mr. Callaghan: I think that I have enough to do to answer for myself without charging myself with the responsibility for what other hon. Members do. I would like to see a little of the spirit of my right hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Mr. Shinwell) present on the occasion, but I am not quite sure what the consequences would be.

Mr. Doughty: I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his statement. I am sure that we all wish to wait to see whether the steps he is taking are sufficient. But does not he realise that, last Thursday, I asked the Leader of the House when the statement would be made and I was told that it would be made before the House rose? Yet the next night, on television, the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary made much the same statement as he has made to us today. Is it not usual for statements of this importance to be made to the House of Commons first?

Mr. Callaghan: I do not think that I was discourteous to the House. In fact, the hon. Member who put down the Question and kindly postponed it for a week at my request did so because he and I both thought that I would have rather more up-to-date information to give after a week. Before I went on television I paid the courtesy to the hon. Member of seeing him and explaining what happened.

Mr. Heffer: Is my right hon. Friend aware that a number of hon. Members will be at the demonstration as observers from the National Council for Civil Liberties and it may be that other hon. Members will be there in support of the campaign? Is he aware that the numbers of people who are likely to get involved in actual conflict with the police are infinitestimal? Is he aware that I have been studying the literature of these groups very closely in the last two weeks and that it is quite clear that, unless the police are provoked and allow themselves to be provoked by a very tiny minority, we are hardly likely to get any violence in this demonstration?

Mr. Callaghan: I think that we had better wait and see on the day. I shall be waiting as eagerly and as anxiously as most hon. Members will to see what the consequences are on Sunday.

Mr. Maude: Is the Home Secretary aware that what is causing most alarm is not the possible incompetence of the organisers, as the hon. Member for Brixton (Mr. Lipton) suggested, but the fact that some of the organisers and their associates have openly stated in the past that a demonstration at which violence does not take place or can be provoked is a failure?

Mr. Callaghan: I am aware of this. This is part of a modern philosophy which has grown up very recently among a tiny group of people. My job is to try to protect the great mass of ordinary freedom-loving people from having their freedom curtailed by the existence of this miserable philosophy.

Sir C. Mott-Radclyffe: Is the Home Secretary aware that, according to Press reports, there could be 100,000 demonstrators plus an unknown but large number of other students who do not want the demonstrators to demonstrate and

a police force of only about 7,000 to deal with what may be a very serious situation? Is he aware that he bears a very heavy responsibility indeed for seeing that all possible steps are taken to ensure, in the event of a breakdown of law and order, that this can be prevented?

Mr. Callaghan: Yes, I am fully aware and quite capable of bearing that responsibility, and I will not shirk it. The estimates we have are that the crowd is not likely to approach anything like 100,000. Indeed, the divisions between the organisers and the difficulty they are having in reconciling the slogans they shall display may mean that there will be a number of abstainers who otherwise might have been present. I see, for example, that the President of the National Union of Students has put out a statement advising its members to stay away.

Mr. Carlisle: Is the Home Secretary satisfied that the route to be taken is a route which will enable the police to avoid damage to private property on the sides of the route?

Mr. Callaghan: I do not think that there is any route which could be taken inside the West End or the City which would avoid damage to private property by those taking part if they were mindful to do it, but the Commissioner is satisfied that this is the best route for the demonstration.

Sir Ian Orr-Ewing: If 7,000 police are mobilised for this purpose, are the outer suburbs—which are represented by many of us, including myself—to be left devoid of protection and therefore encouraging the lawless on that day? Is not the best advice we could give to all our constituents on this occasion to stay away so that the image of our nation which is given to the rest of the world is of an orderly and tolerant one and not one which this small minority wants to impose, which would be very bad for Britain's image?

Mr. Callaghan: As the figure of 7,000 has now been twice quoted, I should say that because I have not denied it does not mean that I accept it. I would prefer not to state the number of police who will be on duty on this occasion, but I assure the hon. Member and his constituents that the same thought


already occurred to the Commissioner, who will make adequate arrangements to ensure that his constituents are looked after.

Mr. Biggs-Davison: Contrary to what the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer) said, is there not much literature being circulated by the organisations behind these marches which is extremely provocative of violence? Is this being looked into? Nevertheless, have not the police in the past shown some other countries an example of how to preserve both law and order and free speech? Will the Home Secretary assure them of our confidence and also of our sympathy?

Mr. Callaghan: I have no doubt from the instructions that have gone out from the Commissioner and from his senior officers right down to the ranks that a great deal of care has been taken over this matter and that the police will respond to the demonstration in a non-provocative manner. I am quite confident that the police themselves will not be provoked. It is true that a number of extremely inflammatory and violent leaflets have been put around—not, I think, by the organisers of the demonstration, but by others who perhaps have little or no following in what they are purporting to say and do.

SITTINGS OF THE HOUSE

House to meet Tomorrow at a quarter to Eleven o'clock.—[Mr. Peart.]

HOUSE OF COMMONS (STANDING ORDERS)

WELSH GRAND COMMITTEE

Ordered,

That

(1) There shall be a Standing Committee to be known as the Welsh Grand Committee to consider such specified matters relating exclusively to Wales and Monmouthshire as may be referred to them and to consist of all Members sitting for constituencies in Wales and Monmouthshire, together with not more than Five other Members to be nominated by the Committee of Selection, who shall have power from time to time to discharge the Members so nominated by them and to appoint others in substitution for those discharged.

(2) A Motion may be made by a Minister of the Crown at the commencement of Public Business, to be decided without amendment or debate, to the effect that a specified matter or matters relating exclusively to Wales and Monmouthshire be referred to the Welsh Grand Committee for their consideration.
(3) If such a Motion be agreed to, the Welsh Grand Committee shall consider the matter or matters to them referred and shall report only that they have considered the said matter or matters.

That this Order be a Standing Order of the House.

STANDING ORDER No. 60 (NOMINATION OF STANDING COMMITTEES)

Ordered,

That Standing Order No. 60 (Nomination of Standing Committees) be amended as follows:

Line 3, leave out 'Committee' and insert 'Committees'.—[Mr. Peart.]

STANDING ORDER No. 61 (SCOTTISH STANDING COMMITTEE)

Mr. Speaker: If the House so desires I will put all the Amendments to this Order together.

Mr. David Steel: I wish to seek an assurance about the last Amendment, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: I have said that if the House so desires I will put all the Amendments in one. If the hon. Member objects to that, I will put them one by one. He can speak on any of them if I put them together. Is he satisfied?

Mr. Steel: Yes, Sir.

Motion made, and Question proposed,

That Standing Order No. 61 (Scottish Standing Committee) be amended as follows:

Line 1, leave out from beginning to 'for' in line 2.

Line 7, at end insert: 'standing committees shall be appointed as set out in this order'.

Line 19, leave out 'the Scottish' and insert 'such a'.

Line 36, leave out 'the' and insert 'a'.

Line 37, leave out 'the' and insert: 'not more than two committees may be appointed; the first such'.

Line 43, after first 'members', insert: 'and the second such committee shall consist of not


less than twenty nor more than fifty members to be nominated by the Committee of Selection, of whom not less than twenty members shall represent Scottish constituencies'.—[Mr. Peart.]

Mr. David Steel: I want to seek an assurance from the Leader of the House about the Amendment in line 43. This is a matter I have raised before, but I should like to get something on the record about it. The difficulty is that when Scottish Committees are appointed to deal with Public Bills it is perfectly natural for the convenience of the House that they should be of the smallest possible size, namely, 20, specified in this proposed Standing Order.
In cases where Committees of 20 are appointed, it is not normal to have a representative from the Liberal Party because the Committee of Selection has instructions to bear in mind the composition of the House. It is fair to say, however, that in Scottish Committees the Liberal Party can legitimately claim to represent a greater proportion of seats. I hope, therefore, that we will not find ourselves, by taking this step, deprived of representation on a Bill relating to Scotland.

Mr. Peart: I concede the hon. Gentleman's point. I think that it is right.

Question put and agreed to.

STANDING ORDER No. 62 (PUBLIC BILLS RELATING EXCLU SIVELY TO SCOTLAND)

Ordered,

That Standing Order No. 62 (Public Bills relating exclusively to Scotland) be amended as follows:

Line 30, leave out 'the' and insert 'a'

Line 38, leave out 'the' and insert 'a'.—[Mr. Peart.]

STANDING ORDER No. 5 (PRE CEDENCE OF GOVERNMENT BUSINESS)

Ordered,

That Standing Order No. 5 (Precedence of government business) be amended as follows:

Line 47, at end add: 'Notice of a subject to be raised on any motion for which a ballot is held in pursuance of this paragraph

may be given at the Table or in the Table Office not less than nine days before the day on which the notice of motion is to have precedence'.—[Mr. Peart.]

PROCEDURE (SELECT COMMITTEES)

Motion made, and Question proposed,

That all Select Committees shall have power to authorise the Clerk of this House to supply copies of their Reports to officers of Government departments, to such witnesses who have given evidence to Committees or to their Sub-Committees as those Committees consider appropriate, to lobby journalists, and to such other Press representatives as the Committee think fit, after those Reports have been laid upon the Table but not more than forty-eight hours before the intended time of publication of such Reports.

That this Order be a Standing Order of the House.—[Mr. Peart.]

Mr. John Boyd-Carpenter (Kingston-upon-Thames): I wish, as Chairman of what is, I believe, our senior Select Committee, to support this proposal and to thank the right hon. Gentleman for bringing it forward. It makes a considerable improvement on the present rule to extend the time of circulation for the Press by 48 hours. Some of these Reports are difficult to master and, although the Press do a wonderful job in mastering them in the limited time available, I am sure that all concerned will get better treatment in 48 hours.
It is also important to have the provision whereby witnesses whose conduct may have been reflected on by a Select Committee can be given the same privilege. I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for bringing the proposal forward.

Question put and agreed to.

STANDING ORDER No. 59 (STAND ING COMMITTEES (CONSTITU TION AND POWERS))

Ordered,

That Standing Order No. 59 (Standing Committees (constitution and powers)) be amended as follows:

Line 51, at end insert 'or as Mr. Speaker has under Standing Order No. 33 (Selection of amendments) in respect of any bill under consideration on report'.—[Mr. Peart.]

SECRETARY OF STATE for SOCIAL SERVICES

4.15 p.m.

The Secretary of State for Social Services (Mr. Richard Crossman): I beg to move,
That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that the Secretary of State for Social Services Order 1968 be made in the form of the draft laid before this House on 16th October.
The proposed merger of the Ministry of Health and Ministry of Social Security was, I believe, welcomed by hon. Members on both sides of the House when it was announced by the Prime Minister last week. I trust, therefore, that the matter will not be controversial. I do not intend to spend a great deal of time at this stage going into the matter; but if hon. Members wish to raise points, then I will seek permission at the end of the debate to answer them.
The purpose of the Order is to bring into one Department, under a Secretary of State, the present Ministry of Health and the present Ministry of Social Security. The new Department will be known as the Department of Health and Social Security and will be placed in my charge as Secretary of State for Social Services. The House will notice that my title is wider than that of the proposed new Department. This is in recognition of the fact, as the Prime Minister mentioned in the House last week, that I have been asked to continue my coordination of the whole range of social services, in addition to my responsibility for the new Department. I am pleased that the title of the new Department retains the names of Health and Social Security. They are names which have come to mean much to large numbers of people in need of help.
Looking up the history of these matters, I notice that the title of the Ministry of Health goes back to 1919, when the Ministry was created by combining the functions of the Local Government Board and the National Insurance Commission. I suppose that one of the most famous Ministers of Health was undoubtedly Neville Chamberlain, who was Minister no fewer than five times. I sometimes think that if the cobbler had stuck to his last, his name might have had even greater fame.
In 1945, Nye Bevan became Minister and, at that time—I recall it vividly—there was a great discussion in Government circles about whether Nye Bevan should be Minister of Health and Local Government, or whether he should be Minister of one or the other. He determined to do both, although, on reflection, I think that it was a mistake, as was indicated a few years ago: in 1951, still under a Labour Government, the Ministry's functions were split and one lot went to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government, which was then called the Ministry of Local Government and Planning.
As for the Ministry of Social Security, that name is of much more recent origin, because it was set up only just over two years ago when my right hon. Friend the Member for Lanarkshire, North (Miss Herbison) brought together the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance and the National Assistance Board. These two Ministries have either initiated or inherited a great many big changes. Particularly, I recall that in 1948 we had a new and comprehensive National Insurance scheme and, in the same year, the National Health Service was established and new welfare services for the elderly and handicapped were introduced under the National Assistance Act, with the abolition of the Poor Law.
Looking back, since 1948 the years have been devoted mainly to building on the foundations which were then laid down. There has been only one major change since then. On the social security side, there was a major change in 1966, especially associated with the name of my right hon. Friend the Member for Lanarkshire, North, who did a wonderful job in that Ministry. That was the setting-up of the Ministry of Social Security and the Supplementary Benefits Commission and the winding-up of the National Assistance Board.
When I recall that we had 40,000 new supplementary pensioners, I appreciate that that was a reflection of the new rates and conditions and was part of the success in beginning to remove the stigma and reluctance of some to claim. We all remember with gratitude what my right hon. Friend the Member for Lanarkshire, North did.
I spoke of 1948. Now, 20 years later, we are entering into a new epoch of


change in relation to a whole series of proposals which are coming before us. We have the Green Paper which my predecessor, the then Minister of Health, proposed. He put it forward not as official Government policy, but as a suggestion for stimulating discussion. We have the Seebohm Report, which is already stimulating discussion in terms of a greater drawing together locally of the social welfare services. Both of these documents must be considered in the context of the recommendations in the local government sphere which we are awaiting from the Redcliffe Maud Commission. Also, in my Department we have the White Paper on the Government's new earnings-related insurance scheme, which is coming forward at the same time.
I believe that the House will agree, therefore, that this is the right moment to create a new and powerful Department of Health and Social Security which will be well-equipped to carry forward new thinking over a wide sphere and to look at the needs of our less fortunate citizens, whether in cash or in services, as a coordinated exercise.
I must say a word about the rôle which I see ahead. I had three predecessors as co-ordinator of the social services in the Labour Government. I believe that, if one asked any of them his view of this task, he would reply that one should not be a co-ordinator without a Department; otherwise, one finds oneself co-ordinating in the sense of asking people to do things with the result that nothing happens. Plainly, if one wants effective co-ordination, one wants a base from which to co-ordinate.
If I may say so, when I have observed the co-ordinating work which is usually done by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, though it might be done by a Minister without Portfolio, I think that he might well not be such an effective co-ordinator as he is in fact with the Treasury behind him. If he were asked about his part in all this operation, the answer would be that the co-ordination should be done from the base of a major Department in Whitehall.
I turn now to the Departmental questions, which, I expect, is what hon. Members will wish to hear about. The first matter which I take up was raised by my hon. Friend the Member for

Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Christopher Price)—he is not here at the moment, I think—when at Question Time he asked the Prime Minister about responsibility for the children's departments of the local authorities and the related section of the Home Office.
As the Prime Minister said in his statement, the question of exactly what will happen is highly arguable. First, we do not yet know what we shall do since we are waiting to consider the recommendations of the local authorities regarding the Seebohm Report. Second, we do not know whether the outcome will call for consequential changes in Whitehall. It is obviously sensible that one should not consider the question of the children's department of the Home Office and the related local authority departments until we see it in conjunction with the Green Paper and the Seebohm Report, and also, I am pretty sure, until we have at least had a look at the Maud Commission's Report on the reform of local government. It will be my job as co-ordinator to see that proposals are brought forward and to consider what consequences flow from them.
The activities of the two Departments are complementary, though in saying that I have no wish to beguile the House with the idea that they will be merged in the sense of mixing, on the one hand, services providing cash and, on the other, activities providing services. They are very different activities. One of the Ministries, as we all know, is largely a Department whose strength is in its regions, in the actual work which it does in the country, whereas the other is, so to speak, advisory, not having the same regional build-up. A large amount of the work will, therefore, remain separate in that sense within different parts of the one Department. However, it remains true that both provide short and longer-term help, and both are concerned with particularly vulnerable groups such as the elderly and the mentally ill.
The planning of services in kind and in cash benefits should be improved in comprehensiveness and efficiency if carried out within one Department, and in their practical operation there is much scope for co-operation at the local level between the local staff of the new Department, on the one hand, mainly in its social security side, and, on the other hand,


the local authority officers dealing with health and welfare, the hospitals and the general practitioners.
The bringing of responsibility together will not automatically achieve a more effective service, but I am certain that it will help towards that end. However, I do not seek to exaggerate the extent of immediate or speedy results.
Having lived with these questions for some months, and thought about them deeply, I am sure that there is one area in which we can make considerable immediate improvements, namely, in the co-ordination of research and the development of central planning in the social services. If there is one area in which we need our information supply coordinated in the sense of getting our intelligence work done, it is in the area of the social services as a whole, and I believe that our Ministry will be able straightaway to start, with its rather larger staff, by merging the intelligence staffs of the two previous Ministries and working them together. I can see considerable improvements in that way and in the planning work resulting from the merging of the two Ministries.
Those are, I think, the main points which I wish to make. If I am asked detailed questions, I should do my best to answer them. I suspect that one or two hon. Members have questions of detail to put, and I shall be quite willing to answer them as best I can.
I am convinced that the case for the change which we are now making—to be fair, I think that it was urged first from the Opposition benches before it was urged from this side—has always been a strong one. In the last four or five months, I have learned a great deal, and I have a great respect for the work which the Ministers and civil servants have done in the past.
Here, if I may, I pay a special tribute to my right hon. Friend the last Minister of Health. He had a long time in that Department, indeed, one of the longest tenures of office. In the past six months, I visited well over half of all the regional hospital boards and talked to them, and I found an unbounded respect—this had nothing to do with party politics—for my right hon. Friend as a dedicated and devoted Minister. I am well aware that in taking over I shall have a very difficult

job to live up to the reputation which he has left behind him in the Department.
As for my right hon. Friend the Paymaster-General, I say only that I shall miss her, because when we try to present to the House our proposals on pensions—the right hon. Member for Kingston-upon-Thames (Mr. Boyd-Carpenter) knows this very well—a powerful mind plus an understanding of women and their problems is an essential factor in the presentation. I shall miss my right hon. Friend a great deal, both for her mind and for her ability to understand the difficulties of the spinster, the married woman the widow, the wife and the rest—all the difficult issues which she was tackling but which mere men will have to tackle in the future in our merged Department.
I hope that I have said enough to show that we have accepted her advice—this shows how open-minded we are—given to us over a long time now by distinguished members of the Opposition. We hope that they will wish us success in the new merged Ministry.

Mr. Speaker: It may help the House if I remind right hon. and hon. Gentlemen that this is a narrow debate. We are debating a Statutory Instrument which dismisses two Ministries and establishes another Secretary of State to take over all their functions. What we are debating today is whether this draft Order be approved.

4.26 p.m.

Lord Balniel: The right hon. Gentleman was very generous in his tributes to various persons who have been concerned in these matters. I begin by extending to him our congratulations on his appointment as the first Secretary of State for Social Services, an office the creation of which flows automatically from the integration of the Ministries of Health and of Social Security. The right hon. Gentleman hoped that we would wish him well. We most certainly do wish him well in what will undoubtedly be a short tenure of office but one which undoubtedly comes at an extremely important moment in the development of this country's social services.
We have with us the former Minister of Social Security and the former Minister of Health. Although in past years I have disagreed with much of their


policies, I know that there is no one who has not respected the two Ministers for their qualities of intellect and their dedication to the services which they have had to administer. They have had heavy responsibilities to fulfil—and they have earned the respect of the whole House. I join the right hon. Gentleman in expressing, to them, the same tributes as he himself has made.
The debate arises against a certain background of sadness and of expectation. It involves the ending of the separate existence of two of the great Departments of State. Both these Departments, the Ministry of Social Security and the Ministry of Health, have built up a fine reputation for the quality of their administration and both have, during their long history under various names, contributed substantially to the well being of the people. On this occation, when we are marking the end of a separate existence for the two Ministries, it is right that those who have worked in them should know how much all they have done is appreciated not only by Members of Parliament but by members of the community in general. For many of them as individuals, the work which they have done in the past will continue in exactly the same form for many years to come.
We appreciate that our task in the House in passing an enabling Measure is a comparatively simple one. However, if the integration is to have any meaning at all and if we are to achieve the overall comprehensive thinking and overall executive action which is necessary, major administrative changes will in fact be necessary within the new Department, and this will be an additional challenge to those who work in this field.
I begin, as the right hon. Gentleman hoped, by assuring him that we shall in no way stand in the way of this integration, because it implements the policy which we have advocated for a considerable time. It was indeed part of the election manifesto which we presented to the country. The Conservative Party Manifesto stated that we were pledged
to combine the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance and the National Assistance Board into a

single Department with local officers who would have a positive duty to seek out those needing help, whether in cash or care".
We therefore welcomed the partial implementation of this policy when the old National Assistance Board was incorporated in the Ministry of Social Security under the Ministry of Social Security Act, 1966.
My regret lies not in the present integration, which we welcome, but in the piecemeal, apparently haphazard and rather involuntary way in which we have reached this point, which for a long time we ourselves have regarded as inevitable. First, we had the 1966 Act and the changing of the name of the Ministry, which I welcomed. But our pressure to bring together the two Ministries at that time was resisted. Now we have this Order and again a new name is to be given to the Ministry. The painters of the local office boards throughout the country will be working overtime. So also will the printers of that great avalanche of leaflets which descends upon us from the two Ministries. More important, because of this piecemeal approach the poor public will become even more confused than was necessary.
My criticism is that even now we do not know when legislation will be introduced to set up a unified social security department at a local authority level. The trek from office to office which so many families in difficulties still have to undertake will continue until we know when the Government will introduce legislation. Until such a step is taken at the local level, the Government's action is basically a gesture, although it is a gesture in the right direction. It is little more than part of the Whitehall game of moving the demarcation line from one Ministry to another. Until the integration is echoed at the local authority level by the local authorities themselves, this measure, which is right in itself, will have very little impact on the public concerned. There will be a continuation of the bewildering variety of services, there will be a continuation of the overlapping of services, and of the gaps which at present exist.
I have paid a tribute to the civil servants who have manned the Ministries of Health and Social Security, however, I do not want to see these civil servants


becoming one of the greatest growth industries in the country. The old economic law of the 1945 Government is once again developing in the present Administration. As we make our giant strides towards Socialism, every footprint seems to create more civil servants. The number has risen in the past four years by the staggering figure of 14,500. One has only to talk to any person working in the Health Service—general practitioner, consultant or member of a hospital management committee—or to anyone in the field of social work, and almost without exception he expresses the opinion that the administration is top heavy and, more important, that it is too remote from the local communities.
In private industry a merger almost invariably results in a reduction in the number of directors, and a reduction in the administrative staff. In its leading article on this subject, the Daily Telegraph commented,
In private industry amalgamation normally produces redundancies. Not so apparently in Government".
Indeed, the number of Ministers has increased from 90 to 107.
When we heard last week of the proposal to amalgamate these two Ministries, my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition immediately asked the Prime Minister what would be the scale of the reduction in staff. The Prime Minister replied that savings in the Civil Service will be difficult to estimate at present. May I ask the right hon. Gentleman why? When two industries are integrated, one of the major financial considerations always taken into account is the degree to which they can make savings in overheads and administrative costs. Presumably in planning this integration the Government must have had business efficiency experts to examine the implications of the integration. One could at least rationally expect that the rate of recruiting of civil servants into the new Ministry would be reduced.
The number of headquarters staff at the Ministry of Health was 3,700. At the Ministry of Social Security the number of headquarters staff was 2,250. The Secretary of State for Social Services will have a combined headquarters staff of about 6,000. But the Ministry of Social

Security also has about 2,000 staff in Blackpool, about 9,500 staff in Newcastle and about 44,000 staff in the various regional and local offices throughout the country. Far from indicating a reduction in the number of civil servants, the Secretary of State announced that an additional 1,500 civil servants would be recruited into the Newcastle centre alone. If the Minister is able so specifically to calculate the increases in staff for which he is planning, I fail to see why he cannot give even an indication of the decreases which will be achieved as a result of this integration. Perhaps he will give an indication in his reply to the debate.
Having urged this integration for so long, I emphasise that our intention is certainly not to establish one giant, monolithic structure. Our intention is the reverse. Integration is necessary because the problems which have to be solved are inter-related problems. There are the inter-related causes of poverty and distress, which lead to family breakdown or ill health. There are also the inter-related methods of service; of care and cash which ought to be used to solve the various problems. The problems which have to be tackled by the Ministry are part of a vicious circle—a vicious circle of shortage of cash, frequently shortage of jobs, physical or mental handicap, short-time working, inadequate health and welfare facilities in the area. A concentration of those problems often is to be found in those areas where there is a heavy influx of immigrants, with the consequential strain placed upon the education and housing services although these do not come within the right hon. Gentleman's remit.
Some degree of integration is necessary if we are to break down the vicious circle, and the step which is being taken today is a step in the right direction. Nobody will doubt the scale, the importance and the political bargaining power of this Ministry which will be very substantial indeed. The current cost of social security amounts to £3,100 million a year, and the combined health and social security Department's budget annually will reach a figure of about £4,700 million. This is more than twice the size of the budget of the Defence Department. It accounts for 30 per cent. of the totality of public expenditure in this country.
If this is not to be a vast bureaucratic organisation, three steps must be taken as part of this reorganisation. First, there must be a massive devolution of responsibility away from London to the localities and wherever possible—and I think that in a large degree it is possible in health and welfare—this devolution should contain a major element of devolution to locally elected local authorities.
I agree with The Times which commented on this rationalisation of the Ministries:
Provided that it is accompanied by a greater willingness to devolve executive and detailed functions, preferably to locally elected authorities where this is appropriate, it could have a reviving effect upon the quality of public administration in Britain.
I have no doubt that my hon. Friend the Member for Farnham (Mr. Maurice Macmillan) will be referring to this in connection with the Health Service, but in broad terms every argument for reviving local democracy and a sense of public participation in decision-making points in this direction of a massive de-devolution of decision-making and responsibility to local authorities.
The second step which should be taken as part of this reorganisation is that to which the right hon. Gentleman himself referred, namely, that within the new comprehensive Ministry an intelligence research unit, substantially stronger than that which exists at the moment, should be established. We are talking in terms of the development of social policy strategy and what is needed is not merely an administrative reform, but administrative arrangements for the future based upon clear, easily understood statistical information showing where the weaknesses exist today and showing projections for the next decade or 20 years. I am personally rather disappointed that the Government have not taken this opportunity of transferring responsibility for the Social Survey, which is the responsibility of the Central Office of Information, to the new Ministry for which the right hon. Gentleman is now responsible.
The third and last major development of policy which I should have liked to have seen taken in conjunction with this Statutory Instrument is perhaps the most crucial. It is that the Government should

announce their acceptance of the principles of the Seebohm Report. They should announce their acceptance of the principle of establishing a new local authority social service department, taking its place alongside the education department and the reconstructed local authority health department.
I fully appreciate that consultations have to take place with medical officers of health, with the probation service, with child care officers and with the various social work professional organisations, and, of course, comments have to be invited and advice sought from the various local authority associations before final demarcation decisions can be reached. But it is important that acceptance of the principle of the Seebohm Report should be announced now, because only if it is done now can the professional organisations, the disciplines concerned, and the local authorities begin the necessary preparatory work, which will be a major undertaking for them.
I agree with the Seebohm Report—and here I parted company from the right hon. Gentleman, although I may have misunderstood him—that it is not necessary to await the reconstruction of local government before introducing legislation to implement the broad outlines of the Report.

Mr. Crossman: I may have said something ambiguous. What I hope I said was that we would await a sight of what the Maud Commission recommended, which is very different from awaiting its completion. We could hardly act without knowing what it would recommend.

Lord Balniel: I fully accept what the right hon. Gentleman has said. It is our expectation that the Lord Redcliffe-Maud Report will not be long delayed. I understand that it is now in draft.
This reorganisation strengthens the position of the Secretary of State for Social Services in political bargaining power in the Cabinet. This must now be accompanied, if it is to have any real meaning, by at least two major important themes of policy. Accompanying this integration of these two Ministries there must be a massive devolution of responsibility from the centre as far as possible to local authorities and there must also be set up an integrated social service


department at local authority level. On that basis we warmly welcome this Statutory Instrument.

4.46 p.m.

Mr. James Griffiths: I join with the noble Lord the Member for Hertford (Lord Balniel) in offering congratulations to my right hon. Friend on entering upon this new and very exciting post, and I wish him well. I also join with the noble Lord in paying tribute to the two Ministers, the last Minister of Social Security and last Minister of Health, who are now sitting on the Front Bench. I should also like to pay tribute to the right hon. Member for Kingston-upon-Thames (Mr. Boyd-Carpenter) who had the privilege of serving in the old Ministry of National Insurance. I also pay tribute to the staff of that Ministry at every level. It was my great privilege from 1945 to 1950 to work in that Ministry and to create the central office. It is interesting to recall that one of the controversial questions at the time was whether a central office at Newcastle-on-Tyne could be successful. Much expert opinion said that it was essential to have everything in London. It is important to remember this when devolution is considered. The establishment of that office has been a wonderful success, and I hope that it will encourage the Government to send more and more administrative work out of London.
Like all these things, this Statutory Instrument is very complicated—perhaps it ought to have an introduction—but I gather that it is proposed that the Secretary of State for Scotland should retain his authority over these services in Scotland. If that is to be the case for Scotland, why not for Wales? We are now abolishing the old Ministry of Health. When that Ministry was set up in the years immediately after the First World War, it included a Welsh Board of Health. What is to happen to that? The Welsh Board of Health was set up in 1919. Is it to be continued as the Scottish Health Department is to continue? Surely this is an appropriate opportunity to transfer responsibility to the Secretary of State for Wales. The Secretary of State for Scotland and the Scottish Office will retain authority for the health services in Scotland the Secretary of State for Wales should be given control of these services in Wales.
I hope that my right hon. Friend has not closed his mind to taking another logical step. It is also my view that the responsibility which the Home Office now has for some parts of the social services should be vested in the new Ministry. Whilst we are doing this we should make a decent job of it.
After the passing of the National Insurance Act, 1946, we found it necessary to establish 1,960 local offices. We took over all types of buildings in those days of stringency immediately after the war when there were so many higher priorities, such as the reparation of bombed cities. I then made up my mind that some day we should establish one social security centre in every community, thus bringing all services under one roof. Some continental countries have already done this.
The trouble about having scattered services is that people are chivvied from one place to another when they try to find out who is to deal with their problem. I believe that this is a wonderful opportunity to do this. I know from my own constituency that local authorities are now considering, and some are beginning to implement, plans for the reconstruction of town centres. I hope that the Government will enter into discussions with local authorities and say, "In the new centre, when you wipe away the remnants of the 19th century and have a new centre for the town, there should be one social security office covering all services". This should be done with local authority services, too. I hope that my right hon. Friend will take this opportunity of ensuring that there is one place to which people can go and get their problems attended to. It is no good building a wonderful structure right at the top if down below there are slummy offices.
The Health Service and the social security services are now to be in one Department. I set up local advisory committees under the 1946 Act. They bring together people from both sides of industry and from every section of the community. The managers and officers of the Ministry of Social Security local offices report to these committees and tender them advice and counsel. Complaints are brought to their attention. This ensures that local opinion can be brought to bear upon the administration.
Dealing with people who are in trouble is an administrative job performed in the most delicate or circumstances. These Committees have served well. There are about 250 local committees through which members of the community are able to bring to the notice of the administration people's problems, difficulties and complaints.
Not only should these Committees be continued. It is important that there should be brought within their purview the administration of the Ministry of Health and the health services. All of us felt that there was a strong case for creating the organisation of the Ministry of Health in the way it was done. However, at local levels it is the least responsible of all. There are executives in the counties. There are regional hospital boards. There is one for the whole of Wales.
We are shortly to tackle the problem of the reorganisation of local government in Britain. This will involve not only the amalgamation of present local authorities into larger and more powerful bodies with greater resources and responsibilities. We may also be discussing the possibility and desirability of establishing regional forms of local government in England, Scotland and Wales. I ask my right hon. Friend to give consideration to the problem raised by the noble Lord. I, too, think that there should be a devolution of authority to localities and that local authorities should be brought into some kind of partnership.
This new Ministry will handle for Parliament and for the whole country these very important human services. We must always remember that we are dealing with people. When I started my public life as a miners' agent my old chief gave me this advice, "People will come to you when they are in trouble. They will not find it as easy as you do to express themselves. Perhaps the biggest service that you can render is to listen to them and to share their troubles".
We owe the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance, as it was, the Ministry of Social Security as it has been more recently, and the officers of the Assistance Board a deep debt of gratitude for the

way in which they have performed their duties. The complaints have been few and far between. We can look back to a quarter of a century of good work. We can all take pride in the fact that a service has been rendered to the people. It is very important to render a service to people without undermining their dignity.
I believe that we may be at the beginning of a new social security structure, perhaps a change in the method of collecting contributions, perhaps in the method of fixing benefits. I hope that the next 25 years will be as fruitful as the last 25 years have been. I take the view that the Welfare State is not a luxury but an essential part of a civilised community. I am very proud that the Government of which I was a member from 1945–50 began this great transformation. I wish my right hon. Friend good luck for the future. I hope that he will give some attention to the problems which are being posed to him this afternoon.

4.58 p.m.

Mr. John Boyd-Carpenter (Kingston-upon-Thames): Like my noble Friend the Member for Hertford (Lord Balniel) and the right hon. Member for Llanelly (Mr. James Griffiths), I begin by wishing the Secretary of State designate a short life but a gay one—in, of course, the official sense.
One of the least important and certainly least intended effects of the Order, if it becomes operative, as I hope that it will, will be a purely personal one. I shall be the person who will have held the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance or the Ministry of Social Security, for they were basically the same, for a longer period than anybody else will ever be able to hold them. I had a longer term there than even my immediate predecessors, Lord Ingleby who, as hon. Members will remember, was Osbert Peake and who did a very fine job in the Department in difficult circumstances, and the right hon. Member for Llanelly, whom we are all delighted to see here today and who left behind him in the Department a memory which was very deeply revered and respected.
With that experience, I can very emphatically endorse what I was so glad my noble Friend said as to the very high quality of the staffs who have served successive Ministers in the Ministry of


Pensions and National Insurance. It is not a combination that one always gets, but they have combined a very high intellectual quality with sensitive feelings of humanity, and they have deserved extremely well of their fellow countrymen.
I have always been an advocate of a unification of the Ministerial and Departmental structure in the social services. Somewhere mouldering in the files of Whitehall there is a paper over my initials advocating this and, as my noble Friend says, the party to which I happen to belong put forward this proposal at the election.
My only quarrel with the Order—and it is one with which a number of hon. Gentlemen are inclined to sympathise—is that it does not go far enough. I agree with the right hon. Member for Llanelly that it is a great pity that the Children's Department is not being taken from the Home Office. if ever there was a vital social service, it is that. I should have thought, particularly after the statement which we heard earlier today, that the Home Office had quite enough to do in its ordinary sphere of activity without acting as a social service department in this limited direction. I hope that the Secretary of State will use what will now be his very powerful position in Whitehall to do a little empire-building, at any rate in this direction. I say that with confidence, because some knowledge of him during my time at the Ministry of Pensions, when I had the pleasure of having him as my shadow, suggests to me that temperamentally he is not wholly opposed to empire-building. I wish him good hunting.
I have never understood why what used to be the Ministry of Labour, which has now gained without much change in function a more high-falutin title, should house a department concerned with unemployment benefit. It seems extraordinary to have, at the same time, an office in the Ministry of Labour dealing with unemployment benefit and a Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance office dealing with other benefits. I think that the unification could have gone further.
At the risk of annoying my Scottish friends I would say that it is absurd to retain the Scottish Health Department as a separate entity. The Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance and the Ministry of Social Services have always

operated in Scotland. I have enough Scottish blood in me to know that the Scots are not backward in coming forward when they have complaints, but I do not recall any complaints about that. With respect to all who work in the Scottish Health Department, I cannot believe that it would not gain in efficiency from being brought into the general complex of the new Department. The Scots are particularly concerned to get good value for their health service, and I think that they should have the advantage of what I believe would be an improvement. I hope that there, too, there will be some expansion. It is of the essence of the Order before us that there should be an overall Ministerial command of the main body of our social services in the interests of all.
As the right hon. Gentleman was good enough to indicate that he would be prepared to answer specific questions at the end of the debate, I want now to ask a number of questions, some of which are based on my experience in the Department.
When two Departments amalgamate, in practice one provides the nucleus. Which will it be in this case? Will it be the M.P. and N.I. or Health? Where will the headquarters of the new Ministry be? Which is to be the centre on which the development is based? The Secretary of State is inheriting a brilliant stair at the Ministry of Pensions. I am not for a moment indulging in any invidious comparisons with the Ministry of Health, of which I have much less knowledge, but I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will take advantage of his good fortune in inheriting the staff at the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance.
I suppose that he will have a number of Ministers of State and Parliamentary Secretaries. How will their functions be allocated? Will there be a Minister of State doing what the former Minister of Health did, and another doing a good deal of what the present Paymaster-General used to do? Alternatively, will the right hon. Gentleman follow the analogy of the Ministry of Defence and divide the responsibilities of his junior Ministers on a functional rather than a subject basis? Perhaps he will be able to tell us how many Ministers of State and Parliamentary Secretaries he will have.
In this connection, I would ask a specific question. There used to be a separate Ministry of Pensions for many years, dealing with war pensions. It is the oldest of all the Departments in the amalgamation over which he will preside. As the right hon. Member for Llannelly will recall, when that was merged in the time of Lord Ingleby into the Ministry of National Insurance, the ex-Service bodies were disturbed. They had been accustomed to having a Minister of their own. It was always the understanding that there should be, at any rate, a Parliamentary Secretary whose main duties were concerned with war pension problems to whom the ex-Service bodies would have frequent access. Under the new arrangements, is it intended to continue that? If so, will that Minister be a Minister of State or a Parliamentary Secretary?
There is a related problem. As the right hon. Gentleman knows, throughout the country there are war pension committees which, on a voluntary basis, do a remarkable job in looking after the interests of the war disabled in the broadest sense. Every Minister of Pensions and National Insurance went round the country at least once a year to meet the chairmen of those war pension committees, as I am sure the Paymaster-General would confirm if she were still in the Chamber. I suppose that it will be impossible for the Secretary of State to carry on that practice, with all the duties that he will have. Is it intended that it shall be carried on by a fairly senior Minister? The committees and the ex-Service bodies will attach great importance to it, and I should be glad to know what are the intentions of the right hon. Gentleman.
Then I take up what my noble Friend said. How far is unification intended at a local level? Already, within the new amalgamation, there are offices of the Ministry of Social Security in every town and, in a number of towns, offices connected with the Health Service, such as those of the executive committees. Is it intended to merge them? At the same time, now that the Supplementary Benefits Commission has taken the place of the National Assistance Board in the old Ministry of Social Security, is it intended that its offices should be merged? When my right hon. Friend talks about the numbers of staff, that is where the real

numbers are. They are not at headquarters. If there is to be an increase in efficiency combined with a reduction in staff and costs to the public, it is in that direction that the real savings will be found.
May I also pick up what the right hon. Member for Llanelly said about the fact that the Ministry of Social Security has for many years been the only major Department to have its main headquarters out of London? It has been a great success. In the late Government, when I had the duty as a Treasury Minister of inducing some of my colleagues, with more or less enthusiasm, to move some of their Departments out of London, this was an extremely useful example to give. Though the right hon. Gentleman had some difficulty in persuading the staff to go, if any of his successors had tried to bring it back, they would have encountered greater difficulty. At one time, light-heartedly and to test the reaction, I told the chairman of the staff side that I intended to bring them back to London. He said, "They will go on strike if you do." It has been a great success, and I hope that, under the new system, the Secretary of State will use his considerable energies to secure that there are further moves out of London.
Here, again, there are economies to be achieved as the result of amalgamation. The Ministry of Social Security has at its Newcastle Headquarters what was, when it was installed, the largest computer in Europe. Right hon. and Hon. Members who have studied the use of computers know that the main problem is to find enough work to keep them fully occupied. When the amalgamation has taken place I hope that a good deal of the work of the old Ministry of Health can be transferred to Newcastle and use made of that very fine computer.
I hope, too, that it may be possible to have a closing up at Blackpool. I hesitate to mention that salubrious resort in the light of recent circumstances. However, there are two substantial Departments there. I hope that they can be brought together and some economy achieved in that way.
Those are only a number of the questions relating to what is, in its way, an historic Order. Though there may be right hon. and hon. Members who have their doubts about it, I think that it is


a step in the right direction, but I should like to see this step carried even further. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will bend his undoubted energies to the task of seeing that an administrative change, which most of us welcome, justifies our hopes.

5.11 p.m.

Mr. Eric Moonman: By Friday next the "mating" referred to in the Order takes place. Clearly implicit in the change is the desire to give an even better service in health and welfare and also to combine and co-ordinate two Departments. Yet it has been said that changes in structure do not necessarily change attitudes, nor make staffs agree or share a common objective. This is an area which the Secretary of State ought to consider. The evidence that we have from industry of mergers taking place and the evidence of public enterprise having been taken over from private enterprise suggests that although there are substantial financial, economic and political reasons for doing it, often the attitudes of the people concerned working within the organisation are not affected. This is a serious matter if we want to coordinate as well as change attitudes.
If the change implied in and required by the Order is to be met, something more than a merging of two Ministries is required. I suggest that it can be looked at under three heads.
First, a careful assessment at all levels of the way that work practice is performed is vital. I am not simply talking about methods. A common affliction of the civil servant when trying to be efficient is to look at methods. I suggest that throughout the entire organisation it is systems which require careful thought and assessment.
Some of the characteristics are worth mentioning in the merger of the two Departments if it is to bring about an improved and co-ordinated service. I mention two or three of the elements.
First, information collection. Is the previous technique still suitable in a "really big Department"? The kind of questions which ought to be looked at as soon as the merger gets under way are the collection of information not only between the two Departments, but also the information process between the staff and the administrators. Generally, informa-

tion collection must form a vital part in the efficiency of the service.
Secondly, analysis and appraisal. How often were the previous work practices appraised? Who did the appraisals? With a vast amount of material now available on the subject, I suggest that there has been, and there should be, a regular injection of ideas and techniques to meet the new structure.
Thirdly, decision making. The way that decisions have been taken in both Ministries now needs to come under sharper focus. The Secretary of State will not be able to engage in extensive detail of the lower levels of decision making. But he will, I suggest, need to be satisfied that the decision-making process is right not only at the top of the organisation, but also in the middle ranges of the new Ministry.
Finally, control. This requires a close watch on the variations in standards of service of social welfare in different parts of the country. For instance, the ways—the peculiar ways—of local councils and the encouragement or not, as the case may be, of voluntary groups. When one considers the state of the community's mental health it is specially interesting to observe the way in which Sections 25 and 29 of the Mental Health Act are interpreted. For example, the Parliamentary Information Unit has discovered that, in the Liverpool hospital region, the compulsory admission rate is over 110 per 100,000 of the population compared with, say, Oxford where it is about 50 per 100,000 of the population.
The second broad area my right hon. Friend ought to consider is concerned with Article 2 of the Order dealing with the transfer of functions and dissolution of the Ministries. It is neat and looks very tidy. But where does this leave Seebohm? This has been brought out on several occasions by different speakers. I would urge my right hon. Friend, either tonight or at the earliest opportunity, to tell us the terrible truth about this report dealing with the personal social services. I should like to think that we could take it. If it is not one of the functions covered by Article 2 there will be some very odd noises in various parts of the social services that a big, brand new, with-it Ministry of Social Affairs does not include responsibilities relating to the family or personal social services.
It may be that the Prime Minister did not assist in the confusion when he said:
I think the House generally will recognise that there are a number of aspects of social, health and welfare matters where the division of responsibility between Departments can complicate the furtherance of desirable policies. It is for this reason that, as the House knows, I have decided to amalgamate the Ministries of Health and Social Security and have asked my right hon. Friend the Lord President of the Council to supervise the planning and timetable for the amalgamation."— [OFFICIAL REPORT, 11th April, 1968; Vol. 762, c. 1582.]
I appreciate that evidence and comments are still coming in from interested bodies on this report, as my right hon. Friend told me in answer to my Written Question on Monday.
Finally, where does the Ministry's functions operate at local level? I will keep my comments brief, because this has been covered most critically. I would remind my right hon. Friend that the Seebohm Committee spent a great deal of time and energy looking at the work of children's departments, the services for the old and the disabled provided by welfare departments under the National Assistance Act 1948, and the services at local level concerning education, welfare and child guidance, home helps, mental health social work, and so on. This is a critical part of the social framework for which my right hon. Friend is responsible. I hope that there will be some indication about how this will be tackled.
Thirdly, the problems of staffing. I hope that the policy of the new Ministry will be to encourage and stimulate a dialogue between the Ministry being taken over and Members of Parliament in a way which has not always been possible in the past. For instance, with the children's service, the Home Office has gone a long way towards making available information on staffing. Figures are available to show that there are many small authorities in Britain which have substantially lower proportions of qualified staff. It would be a reasonable assumption that at times of shortage of professionally qualified case work and field staff in all the social services, it is in the public interest that the distribution of the qualified staff should be related either to need or at least should be fairly evenly distributed.
I have offered these comments briefly, and perhaps with some criticism, but I trust in a positive way. I know that my right hon. Friend, as the Secretary of State for the Social Services designate, has a considerable responsibility in tackling a service, which is the most personal of all administered by the Government, and, therefore, will be subject to keen and close scrutiny. There is no doubt in my mind that my right hon. Friend is the most fitted in this House to stimulate the energy and enthusiasm to merge the two departments. I wish him well.

5.18 p.m.

Sir John Vaughan-Morgan: We all wish the right hon. Gentleman very well in his new office and in his new and immense task. I almost hesitate to cast a note of doubt, dissent and discord into the cosy colloquy which has been going on so far. But I think that this is probably the wrong initial step in this important task. It was described to me, by one far more expert in these matters, as the marriage of chalk and cheese. I cannot but feel from the right hon. Gentleman's introduction that even he has not any very great hopes that this immediate merger, or even marriage, will be very fruitful.
I do not want so much to stress that side of it as to concentrate on the constructive side of the right hon. Gentleman's task, which is the co-ordination of the various services. Here—and perhaps this is the reason for my dissent—I should point out that the Ministry of Health, the Department which I know best, has obvious affinities with, and overlaps, other Departments, particularly the Ministry of Housing and Local Government, the Department from which it originally sprang, and to which I should have wished to see it returning today.
The right hon. Gentleman referred to the divorce which took place in 1951. When I spent a brief spell at the Ministry of Health there was a legend circulating that when the division took place it so happened that Dr. Dalton got to the office first, which was why he was in Whitehall, while the Ministry of Health was cast into the outer darkness of Savile Row. If, therefore, the marriage had been restored. the right hon. Gentleman would have been able to go straight back to Whitehall where it all


started, and I feel that this might even be a sentimental reason for him so doing.
Furthermore, I cannot help drawing attention to the fact that there would be absolute advantages in that merger. At a time when the Green Paper has been launched and is out for discussion with all those concerned with the National Health Service, and at a time when the Redcliffe-Maud paper on local government is coming forward, I feel that this would have been the right merger and would have led in the near future to some positive benefit. As I said earlier, I thought that this proposal for the merger of these two Ministries was a foolish one when it was put forward in my party's manifesto, and I knew for certain it was when it was adopted by the Labour Government.
I should like to make one point on the new set-up, and that is that, judging from the Prime Minister's replies to Questions recently, it appears that the two Ministers of State are going to divide their responsibilities between the two Departments. One has a vision of the two Ministers of State permanently oscillating between the Elephant and Castle and the Adelphi. I hope that this will not be so. I hope that to begin with there will be one Minister of State for the health side, and one Minister of State for the social services.
This is extremely important. Anyone who has been at the Ministry of Health knows that the Minister has vast administrative responsibilities. He is, indirectly, perhaps one of the largest employers in the country. He has to negotiate with many different grades and degrees of people, many of whom—and one section in particular—are particularly difficult to negotiate with, and I refer, of course, to the doctors. I know that there is every reason for some of their difficulties in negotiations, but it is a tact. I think that there will be a much better chance of success for the right hon. Gentleman in his task if, at any rate to begin with, there is one Minister of State to whom everyone concerned knows they can appeal.
One other point which has been referred to is the curious anomalies with which the right hon. Gentleman starts. First there is his curious Scottish schizophrenia, by which he sheds his

health hat as he crosses the border to Scotland, but not when he crosses the border to Wales. No doubt the right hon. Gentleman will deal with that.
The acid test of the right hon. Gentleman's prospects of success is whether he can take over the children's department of the Home Office. I shall give a loud cheer if he can winkle that away from the Home Office. He will, I believe, succeed where others have tried and failed. I have never understood why children's welfare was in that ragbag of a Department, all mixed up with police, prisons, fire brigades, aliens, and all sorts of curious duties connected with the Channel Islands. Last, but not least, I understand that the Home Office has the duty of maintaining the Standing Roll of the Baronetage. I cannot help feeling that none of these duties has anything in common with the care of children. It may be the right hon. Gentleman's Waterloo, but we all wish him every success in taking that over as soon as possible. The only argument that I have ever heard was that it was suggested that it humanised the Home Office, but that has not been so in my experience during the last year or two.
Some reference was also made to the fact that certain duties remained with the Minister of Labour. I add to that the responsibility which the Minister of Labour still has for industrial health. This is something which ought straight away to be brought under the umbrella of the new Minister.
Those are a few comments on this change, but I should not want to sit down without being allowed to pay my own very warm tribute to the last Minister of Health. The National Health Service has, fortunately, as regards most matters, now got beyond mere party politics. Therefore—and I think this will be agreed to by both sides of the House—I can now, as one who in a small way has something to do with the National Health Service, pay a very warm tribute to the right hon. Gentleman.
The Times, in a rather quaint phrase, said that it was no occasion for shedding crocodile tears on his transference to other responsibilities. I am no crocodile, but I should like to shed a very slight tear at the right hon. Gentleman leaving the sphere of the National Health Service. He has won the warmest regard


of everyone, even some of the most difficult people with whom he has to deal, and I think it would be right for it to go on record that we all wish him well in his new task, and thank him very much for all he has done in the past.

5.27 p.m.

Mr. Laurence Pavitt: in a quiet way, in a quiet House, at the end of the Session, we are witnessing the start of a revolution. Perhaps revolutions in this country always happen that way, and perhaps it is just as well, but the House should be aware of the significance of this Order as part of a period of radical change which is as significant to the ordinary people of this country as was Beveridge in 1942, and the 1946 and 1948 Acts in the matters which the Secretary of State will now take over.
We are witnessing radical changes throughout both Ministries and my main doubt relates to timing, whether this is the right time at which these two Ministries should be welded together, and whether sufficient discussion has gone on prior to the welding operation. I accept that there is never any right or opportune time, and that if one waits for an opportune time one may wait for all time, but I regret that this action has been taken before very full and comprehensive discussions of the complicated measures which will be involved in the merging of two major Ministries. However, that is water under the bridge and I think that there is therefore no point in doing other than accept the fact and be open minded in welcoming the step that has been taken and seeing what we can do to ensure that it yields the maximum benefit in both spheres for which the Secretary of State will be responsible.
The right hon. Member for Reigate (Sir J. Vaughan-Morgan), the right hon. Member for Kingston-upon-Thames (Mr. Boyd-Carpenter), and all those who have spoken have paid tribute to the previous Minister of Health, my right hon. Friend the Member for St. Pancras, North (Mr. K. Robinson). I should like to add my voice to those tributes. No one has more right than I in this House because I suppose that during the last four years no-one on these benches has done more than I have to support him, and no one has attacked him more vigorously than I have when I thought he was wrong.
One reason why he was one of our greatest Ministers of Health was that he was devoted to the Health Service. He was aware of the intellectual problems involved and of the stresses and strains involved in dealing with them, and his compassion and knowledge gave him the imagination and insight which were so necessary when dealing with a problem such as that which arose when general practitioners were on the rampage.
One of the reasons why he was so successful was that for the first time for many years we had a Minister of Health who did not regard his job as being the bottom rung of the ladder, so that he wanted to go upstairs somewhere else. He wanted to be Minister of Health. He was devoted to the job, and was committed to it. I pay tribute to his work and I am certain that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will find valuable in building even better in the future that which he has inherited from my right hon. Friend in the past.
The right hon. Member for Reigate and the right hon. Member for Kingston-upon-Thames referred to the responsibilities of the Ministers of State—a question that I raised with the Prime Minister on Tuesday. I hope that if special designation is given, so that one Minister will be responsible for health and the other for pensions it will not mean a transference of the pull-devil, pull-baker strain on resources to within the new Ministry the struggle which probably took place previously at Cabinet level. One of the advantages of the merger is that we have a Cabinet Minister with an overall and planned approach to the problems previously divided between two Ministers. But this operation will be abortive if there is merely the sort of struggle below him that we previously had within the Cabinet. I do not think that that will happen. Even if one Minister is designated for special responsibility in one Department and the other for special responsibility in the other, this conflict need not necessarily occur.
The changes required are tremendous at both central and local level. The main area in which we find common ground is in the work of the welfare inspectors—at the moment under the Ministry of Social Security—the people who are assessing the needs of elderly people. I pay tribute to their work in


the last few years, which has often extended itself into social welfare activities, but at present these workers are not trained for that purpose. They are trained to assess cash needs and to say whether or not a case is deserving. There is no reason why their work should not be extended into family case-work but, if so, the Ministry will have to have a crash training programme to qualify them not only to assess the cash and material needs of people who are worthy of help but to be able to follow through with all the resources of the welfare activities in the locality, to give the additional support that these people may need.
Mention has been made of the immense changes on foot at the moment within the Ministry of Health. The Green Paper foreshadows the integration of what were three separate Departments into a single administration covering all three wings. Inevitably, at the local level, there will be an impact on the whole question of social welfare. In opening the debate for the Opposition the hon. Member for Hertford (Lord Balniel) drew attention to the need for a unified social services structure at local level. This will be better put into operation as a result of this Statutory Instrument than would have been possible with two separate Ministries.
We cannot discuss the consequences of this Statutory Instrument, but it will provide many new opportunities, and I am certain that my right hon. Friend will take full advantage of it. When I first came to the House I spent some time trying to persuade the previous Administration to put the Minister of Health into the Cabinet. The nearest to success I got was when the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Powell) found himself in the Tory Cabinet. I cannot claim credit for that; indeed, it was not my intention at that time.
Now we have a Minister with responsibility for health and social security in the Cabinet, and this is a move in the right direction. This will enable a forceful case to be made for a balance to be achieved in respect of demands on the nation's resources. This sector, which already spends £4,700 million a

year, will have a powerful voice and will be able to put its case in a proper way. It will command respect for the arguments that it musters.
If I have a little concern for my right hon. Friend it is not in respect of his capacity. Everybody knows that he applies himself to any job that he does with a tremendous amount of energy and intellectual capacity. The finest speech I have heard on pensions was that made by my right hon. Friend in 1957 at the Labour Party conference. I am certain that on that side he will bring an expertise second to none to the unified Ministry, besides a command of knowledge and information and sources of information also second to none. Nevertheless, since pensions was his first child I urge him to make sure that his second child—health—receives the same amount of intellectual understanding and the same right to call upon resources.
The question of Scotland has been raised. Theoretically, I have always felt it was wrong for Scotland to be hived off from the rest of the country in health matters. In practice this has worked well, and I am happy to know that there will be no alteration to the present system. I can put forward theoretical arguments showing that unifying health administration in one British ministry would be better, but in practice, in many respects—especially in respect of the integration of teaching hospitals and regional hospital boards—Scotland has been in advance of England.
I add my voice to that of the right hon. Member for Reigate in respect of the pieces missed out. I hope that they are missed out only temporarily. When the Health Service was established we put up three walls to protect the citizen against the impact of ill-health and disability—first, general practice; second, hospital services, and, third, local health authorities. The fourth wall was left open to all elements and concerns what happens to people at work. The Annual Report of the Ministry of Health published today reveals an increase in the stresses and mental strains, and the illness which follows, many of which take place while people are at work, indicating that a complete occupational health service is long overdue in order to establish a fourth wall.
The Department of Employment and Productivity has already started to reorganise its own health side. Two thousand general practitioners, who now turn up on Friday afternoons to see whether 15-year-olds are healthy when being recruited, will disappear from this part-time employment. A more positive rôle will be carried out by a new health inspectorate. I have made representations to my right hon. Friend that whilst these changes are in the offing they should be incorporated in his Ministry, and his present answer is "Not yet". I hope that that answer is not final. When we have a comprehensive health service bound up with a comprehensive social security service it is inevitable that we shall have to take heed of the welfare and health of people while at work, and that this must be co-ordinated with what is going on in respect of domicilary and institutional care, especially in health matters.
Therefore, unless we are to have a waste of medical manpower and resources, and a duplication of effort, they must ultimately come within the purview of the new Ministry and thus be the responsibility of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State. Only in that way can we move from the purely legalistic approach of making sure that factory inspections are carried out and that the law is complied with to the more positive one of preventing people from becoming ill because of the conditions in which they work and the mental strains and stresses from which they suffer, often unnecessarily. I agree that this Statutory Instrument will not allow us to do everything at once.
There is duplication in the dental service, with the school dental service, the general practitioner service and the hospital service. The latter two are likely to be tied up under the proposals of the Green Paper, but the third is under the control of the Secretary of State for Education and Science. Similarly, there is the possibility of dental care being a unified service with aspects of the health service. Now that there is a comprehensive general dental practitioner service, could there not be co-ordination so that important and scarce dental manpower could be saved? That could be done if this were part of forward planning.
I welcomed my right hon. Friend's comment that planning and research will be one of his priorities. Obviously his first responsibility must be for those matters within his own Department but I hope that the research will not ignore peripheral matters, in which a little research at this stage might lead to a more effective and comprehensive service in a few years' time. I accept, and will not repeat, the point made by many hon. Members about child care, another aspect which should be incorporated into this new gigantic Ministry.
I conclude with an appeal based on some remarks by the noble Lord who opened for the Opposition concerning the relationship to the new Ministry of voluntary effort and the participation of the local community in what is being done centrally and locally through the initiatives of the new Ministry. I hope that we shall see many initiatives from the new Ministry. One of our failures in the last twenty years has been our inability to identify either the patient or the recipient of the benefits which we—the ordinary people—provide for each other with the service which is being given. People still say that it is the Government who give. It is still regarded as a free Health Service, in spite of the fact that most of us present in the House today have paid at least £800 into it since its inception. The service has become impersonal and not part of ourselves—"they" and not "us".
If the new planning, the new research and the new drive which I know will come from the Minister are to be effective, people must be made to feel that the service belongs to them and that they are participating in it. Local voluntary bodies and organisations must feel that they are not peripheral to the service but that the service belongs to them, that they have paid for it and that it is their right—not a service which a paternal Government provide out of their charity or the goodness of their heart. There must be local participation and activity, not a feeling that decisions are handed down from Sinai like the Ten Commandments. There must be an effective approach to bring in constructive criticism and argument. Unless this is the case, we may well find ourselves in a more sterile situation than is healthy.
I join other hon. Members in wishing my right hon. Friend good luck in the task which he faces. I understand the size and the great complexities of the problems in the field of health with which I have been concerned. But I am certain that no hon. Member is more capable of coping with these great pressures than is my right hon. Friend, and I wish him well.

5.44 p.m.

Mr. Marcus Worsley: Until this afternoon we have been given remarkably little information about the proposed merger. There is a marked difference between this proposal and that in respect of external affairs, about which there have been reports and discussions over a long period. Although he introduced the debate lucidly, the new Secretary of State has not explained the thinking and the philosophy behind this change. I sometimes wonder whether it has been fully thought through.
May I interpose one word in a completely lost cause which has not been espoused so far today? We are suffering from a hopeless proliferation of Secretaries of State. It is not a smart thing at all now in Government to head a Department unless one is a Secretary of State. With all respect to the right hon. Gentleman who is to become one very shortly, the title has become hopelessly devalued, in the same way as have ambassadors in the diplomtic field. This is not a party point, because I recognise clearly that the Government of my party started this Gadarene rush when they turned the simply worded Ministry of Education into the Department of Education and Science with a Secretary of State at the head of it. I do not believe that government is more efficient because there are grandiloquent titles among Ministers.
I realise that before long all Ministers will be Secretaries of State, to the complete confusion of our Continental friends who regard a Secretary of State as a very inferior animal indeed. Much more important is the confusion in the public mind caused by these continual changes. It is only a matter of months since the pots of red paint had to be employed to change all the notice boards of the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance and of the National Assistance Board. Then all the boards of the Ministry of Labour had to be changed when it

became the new and ludicrously grandiloquent Department of Employment and Productivity. Now there is to be a new painting of boards right across the country—so that there is at least one area of the economy in which there will be no unemployment.
Hon. Members must appreciate the confusion which all these changes cause in the public mind. These are not things which happen only in Whitehall or among Ministers sitting around a Cabinet table. They involve changes right across the country—changes of name for many people who find these technicalities very difficult to follow. I hope that at least we shall not have another change in this respect and that this time we have it right.
I am not enamoured of the right hon. Gentleman's title. I find it excessively sibilant. There are two many s's. I should have preferred a much more general title, for instance, Secretary of State for Social Affairs. I say that not only because it avoids the excessive sibilance to which I have referred but also because it would signify a more general responsibility across the field. After all, what we are discussing this afternoon is not a new structure but a merger.
Like other hon. Members, I fear that it will be a monolithic structure and that the monolith will be very hard to administer. Certainly when I, and I hope many of my hon. Friends, were advocating a single Ministry, I did not mean just a merger. What I want to see is a strategic Ministry over-seeing the whole social field and accompanied, as my noble Friend the Member for Hertford (Lord Balniel) said, by a massive devolution from the centre, together—a point not yet sufficiently stressed this afternoon—with the maximum encouragement of private provision. I want to see a Ministry freed from detail and therefore free to think and plan and. above all, free to think and plan ahead in a rapidly changing society.
In his statement of 16th October the Prime Minister spoke of the duties of the Secretary of State in co-ordinating the whole range of social services. I hope that in summing up the debate the right hon. Gentleman will be more specific about what that means. Everybody knows that co-ordinating responsibilities


in Government are eyewash. The Secretary of State said as much today. Indeed, I thought that he was a little unkind to his right hon. Friend the Paymaster-General who was sitting on his left.

Mr. Crossman: Really?

Mr. Worsley: The right hon. Gentleman obviously did not appreciate what I said. I repeat that he said, in effect, that co-ordinating responsibilities in Government were ineffective. Had he noticed that seated next to him but one on the Front Bench was another Minister concerned with co-ordination, who was looking somewhat unhappy at the right hon. Gentleman's remarks, I believe that he would have chosen his words more carefully.
Why has this division been drawn on the lines of these two Ministries? Why are other social services apparently necessary subjects only for co-ordination whereas those covered by Health and Social Security must be directly administered? Is there anything behind this decision, and what is the logic of it? We have heard something about the children's service, and I echo what hon. Members have said about that. But what are the other social services which the right hon. Gentleman considers are in need of co-ordinating and why do they have to be co-ordinated rather than managed? My feelings are slightly like those of E. M. Forster about democracy. I say "two cheers" for it and I support it, but I regard it as only a clumsy first step in the right direction.

5.51 p.m.

Mr. Tim Fortescue: I, too, welcome the appointment of the right hon. Gentleman and pay tribute to the work which previous Ministers have done. I hope that I will not be accused of indelicacy when I say that if we have not learned to love them, we have learned to live with them. Included in my tribute is a "Thank you"—no hon. Member has so far paid this tribute—to the Parliamentary Secretaries of the two Departments; and I am delighted to see the stalwart figure of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health in his place. We lived with him for many hours when debating a number of Measures in the past year or so and have all come out unscathed.
Without referring to any one Minister, I suggest that it is not a good thing for Ministers to be in one job for too long. Ministers, however admirable and whatever their party, begin to regard their surroundings as fixed and immutable if they are in the same post for too long, and they cease to see the wood, however undesirable the trees. Ministers are like mini skirts. They are of absorbing interest at first, but their attraction decreases as one realises that what they display was perhaps more pleasing when it was partly concealed.
The second Article of the Order transfers all the functions of the two Ministry's to the Secretary of State. What other functions and powers, besides those residual ones, will he have? For example, will he wish to eliminate some of the present anomalies of one Department seeming to be working in opposition to another? This would seem a fundamental part of his duties and I trust that he will eliminate such friction.
I will give a vivid example of how this friction is working. We have in past months heard much of the so-called scroungers, cheats and lay-abouts who draw social security benefits fraudulently. I had the privilege and pleasure, as a result of the co-operation of the still Minister of Social Security, to whom I am most grateful, to spend some days during the last Recess working in the local office of the Ministry of Social Security in my constituency.
What I saw there convinced me of the excellence and high standard of the work that is done in these offices. I was enormously impressed by the skill, patience and fund of compassion possessed by the comparatively young men and women who serve behind the counters and who are faced every day with many and difficult cases, sometimes being submitted to insult and abuse by the customers. They take it all with a smile and always they have compassion.
There are, of course, some scroungers and lay-abouts, but only a few. With millions of £s of public money being handed over these counters, only when we are all angels will there not be somebody trying to get a payment to which he is not entitled. As I observed what was happening in my local Ministry office, I noticed that the employees there knew these people a mile off. They saw them


coming before I did and they knew most of them and referred to them as "regulars". Once convinced that a person applying was dishonest, the Ministry's officers saw to it that they did not get anything out of the Ministry. However, this was done with tact, patience and compassion and we need not fear that money is being too easily handed out by Ministry officers.
There is, however, an exception; a category of fraudulent claimants with whom the Ministry's officers cannot cope. They know that they cannot cope and there is nothing that they can do about it. I refer to the claimant who arrives with a note signed by his doctor saying that he is unfit for work and is therefore entitled to draw sickness benefit.
I am not casting aspersions on the medical profession—on the ordinary hard-pressed and overworked G.P.—but when a patient says to his doctor, "have a backacke and I do not think I am fit for work", it is the normal practice of the G.P. to say, "You had better take a week off".
If the new Secretary of State will, when he has time, take a look at the incidence of backache in the summer months, at holiday time, he might be surprised to find that this not too serious complaint has a remarkable change of statistic when holiday time is upon us. There is nothing that the doctor can do. He cannot diagnose or treat a backache on a Monday morning. There is nothing that the Ministry's officers can do. They have the doctor's word that the man is not fit for work. Probably they never see the man again, as he draws his one week's benefit and goes off on holiday.
I do not make this accusation lightly. I have spoken with many doctors on the subject and they have admitted to me that they will give a note on this basis for a complaint which they cannot check in the short time at their disposal. After all, they must also worry about their practices. There is in Liverpool a case of a doctor's windows having been broken because he refused to give notes on slender evidence.
The other day I asked a Question on this score and got a rather dusty Answer. I suggested that for certain mild complaints of this nature a note from a G.P.

should not be enough to qualify a man for sickness benefit and that the case should be referred to a doctor of the Ministry, or confirmed by a doctor at the man's place of work. I was told that that would not be possible because the only man who could diagnose the complaint was the doctor treating the man. But I am not talking about treatment. I am speaking about a man who, out of the blue, goes to his doctor and says, "I have a backache." He is the man with a fraudulent claim for sickness benefit and there is nothing that the Ministry can do about it. If the new Secretary of State is to have proper co-ordinating functions between Health and Social Security he could put a stop to this practice.
Among the many other matters which I would like the right hon. Gentleman to consider is the question of the activities of the special investigation officers of the Ministry of Social Security. Mr. Speaker has told me that if I raise this matter now I will be ruled out of order, although he has promised me an early opportunity of raising it on the Adjournment.
I have a particularly scandalous example of the activities of these men in my constituency. I will ask the Secretary of State to look at these duties and at the behaviour of these officers. Their very title—special investigation officers of the Ministry of Social Security—has an Orwellian flavour about it and I hope that something will be done to ensure that they do not continue to exceed their duties and power in visiting private citizens in their own homes.
Among other matters which must be looked at in the context of today's conditions are the proposed regulations relating to unemployment benefit for occupational pensioners which have roused such violent protests and opposition from practically everyone in the country, including the T.U.C. I hope that
we shall hear no more about this proposal. Again, a Bill has now been enacted which enables the Minister of Health to extend the range of those to whom invalid transport can be issued, and we hope to see very early action in that respect.
The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Llanelly (Mr. James Griffiths) spoke of the labour exchanges. Why should


not these Departmental offices be merged with the local offices of the Ministry of Social Security? I understand that in many cases the Ministry of Social Security, as the paymaster on behalf of the Department of Employment and Productivity, provides the money, so there seems to be no reason why the two offices should not be merged.
The very important point of compassion comes in here. Many people hate to be seen going into the office of the Ministry of Social Security because their neighbours, if they see them, think they must be in trouble of some kind. But if, as the right hon. Gentleman suggested, we had a central place where all local government and social services offices were combined, to go in there could not be thought of as a stigma. Many people could be going there for quite different reasons which in the general public's mind would not be stigmatic at all.
There is also the question of amenities at the offices of the Ministry of Social Security. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman would turn his mind for a moment to the contrast between the conditions in hospitals, where so much has been spent, let us say, since the war, in providing amenities for visitors—warmth and comfort and cups of tea—and the conditions in which visitors to Ministry of Social Security offices have to wait. In many cases, these offices are slumlike. In my constituency, they are still in wooden huts. But all these people are citizens of this country, and should be allowed to wait in warmth and comfort, and in a place which does not remind them of a slum.
I welcome the merger, I pay my very warm and sincere tribute to what has been done in the past, and I look forward to a very bright future for the combined Department.

6.3 p.m.

Mr. Kenneth Baker: like all hon. Members who have spoken so far, I welcome the merger, but with qualifications. I see it as the first step along a very long road. I regret that this debate has had too much of a funereal atmosphere about it. We have all been standing at the gravesides of the Ministries of Health and Social Security, paying

fulsome tribute, and only a few hon. Members have looked at the exciting future which lies ahead as a result of this merger, and the additional responsibilities which the new Ministry should have.
I am still not convinced that moving the children's department of the Home Office to the new Department would be right. I agree—

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Eric Fletcher): Order. I must remind the hon. Gentleman that in this debate we are dealing with the merger of two Departments. We are not entitled, in this debate, to advocate at great length the merger of other Departments. One can touch on it, but one cannot make it the subject of one's speech.

Mr. Baker: I accept your Ruling, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but three other hon. Members have mentioned this possible merger of the children's department of the Home Office with the new Ministry and have put forward their reasons at great length. I was about to refer to it, and say that I agreed with the new Minister.
We are rather lonely, I think, because we are the only two people here this afternoon who do not believe that this should be done. And I have had, therefore, to examine my reasons very carefully. It seems to me that the children's department of the Home Office covers such a range of responsibility and raises such very deep issues, which you touched on yourself. Mr. Deputy Speaker, in your Ruling, such as the whole relationship of borstals to the community, that difficulties would arise if this department were combined in the new Ministry. However, this is a subject for further debate.
There seems to be an amazing inadequacy in this merger. It is extraordinary that the new Department which will look after social welfare of the people will not be responsible for welfare housing at all. How otherwise can the right hon. Gentleman fulfil his responsibilities and obligations towards many classes of socially deprived people whose real need is housing? The social groups I have in mind, and they are very substantial groups, consist of families with four or five children and which are usually low wage earning. The local authorities do


not want them as tenants nor build them appropriate houses, but they are the responsibility of the Ministry of Social Security. Another group consists of the fatherless families, the unmarried mothers, the deserted wives, the widows with children and lastly the very old single people living alone.
These people usually have acute housing problems: how will those problems be met if the new Ministry is not given responsibility for subsidised welfare housing? I hope that when the Seebohm Report is implemented at local level, the new local administrations that will emerge will have responsibility in the social department for subsidised welfare housing. If I may adapt the phrase coined by the Minister of Technology, I believe that welfare housing is too important a matter to be left to the Ministry
of Housing—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. We cannot, in this debate, deal with the desirability or otherwise of transferring functions of welfare housing. We are dealing with the desirability of merging the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Social Security.

Mr. Baker: I accept your Ruling, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I wanted to know how the Minister proposed to fulfil his responsibilities to these socially deprived groups who, socially, need housing, and for whom his Ministry is responsible.
The main functions of the present Ministry of Social Security is the distribution of cash. The right hon. Gentleman discussed at length the difference between the cash side—the Ministry of Social Security—and the care side—the Ministry of Health. As I believe that in the 'seventies with more advanced computers we will move to a form of negative Income Tax—which I do not believe is a cranky idea—it may be necessary to look again at the cash side of the Ministry of Social Security and see whether that would not be better combined with the Treasury and the tax system. Eventually, we have to face the fact that in this merger we are tending to put together chalk and cheese. One has to envisage a type of organisation for our social security system which is one Ministry that deals with cash—taxes and payments and, on the other side, the Ministry dealing with care, whether that care be

hospital care, G.P. care, community care or housing care. Only a Ministry which has its functions split in that way can adequately deal with the enormous social problems which we have so far been unable to solve satisfactorily.

6.9 p.m.

Mr. Maurice Macmillan: I do not wish to delay the House unduly, so 1 hope that the right hon. Gentleman will not think my welcome to this Order and my congratulations to him are perfunctory. He has, at least, succeeded in being almost the first co-ordinator to succeed in having power as well as responsibility for what he co-ordinates.
In a speech made on 11th October at Brighton, my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, North-East (Sir K. Joseph) referred to what we have in the social field as being more of a welfare archipelago than a Welfare State. We had, he suggested, a large number of welfare islands separated by seas of emptiness and confusion. I welcome this effort in what, in this metaphor, one might call land reclamation which the Secretary of State is putting forward today. That was the purpose of our putting this proposal in our 1966 election manifesto.
The object of combining the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance and the National Assistance Board was, as the right hon. Gentleman has generously admitted, to achieve an organisation with the positive duty of seeking out those who needed help, whether that help was needed in cash or care, and a research organisation to pinpoint the changing needs in the rapidly changing society in which we live.
The 1966 Act went part of the way, and my hon. Friend the Member for Melton (Miss Pike) took the opportunity to hope that the Measure which we are now debating would soon come forward. Although we still have some reservations on matters of detail, we on this side of the House are almost unequivocally glad that the Government have acted in this way.
I was reassured by some of the right hon. Gentleman's opening remarks when he made it clear that he regarded this not as an end which had been realised at long last, but rather as part of a development which had now been going on for a long time and which needed


to be carried further and perhaps accelerated in the changing conditions of the future. The degree to which that is likely to happen depends not only on the structure of the organisation set up to deal with these problems, but also upon the attitude which that changing structure develops among all those who are in this work and the attitude to the problem not only of the new Ministry, but of the local authorities of whatever sort emerged from the various debates now taking place. It requires the change of emphasis and philosophy to which my hon. Friend the Member for Chelsea (Mr. Worsley) referred.
It was expressed by my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, North-East, in that same speech, as a hope that
we could now move from what he referred to as a symptom orientated social service towards a person or family orientated service. That is certainly much to be desired. It is happening in other respects and it is a recognition that it is families and individuals in all circumstances who matter to the Welfare State rather than merely some aspect of one difficulty into which they have fallen.
It carries the implication—and I should like to know the right hon. Gentleman's view—that we are changing our concept towards subsidising, with help or cash, people rather than things. It is an idea which is implicit in a number of proposals which have been put forward by various private organisations, including the Disablement Income Group, and it is a concept which means a great deal more success in dealing with those who are suffering in one way or another at possibly less cost to the State and the taxpayer, as, for example, the proposal for a disablement income as a method of preventing people from requiring institutional care.
As has been said, much depends on an effective integration of the structure at every level, but, even with such integration, all those working in it must be consciously moving towards the identification of family needs and finding how people are being affected by changing circumstances and identifying needs as they arise.
My second point has already been mentioned by my noble Friend the Member for Hertford. That is the use of a

potential intelligence unit and inspectorate. As time is short, I will say merely that I hope that this will not be entirely central, but that any concept of an intelligence unit, research unit, or inspectorate, will include not only getting a high standard achieved throughout the entire service, but identifying special local needs and changing local circumstances. As the hon. Member for Willesden, West (Mr. Pavitt) said, things are not the same in different parts of the country, and needs and difficulties change greatly in different parts of the world.
I am inclined to agree with the right hon. Gentleman that it is difficult at this stage to go much further with the structure while we are still awaiting reports and ideas on the organisation of local government, and so on. He hinted that his role of co-ordinator was a prelude, in some cases, to making a takeover bid for some of the things which he was co-ordinating, and I hope that for one he will be able to tell us that his takeover bid for the children's department of the Home Office is coming soon. However, I agree that until we get over the restructuring of local government and the reorganisation of the Health Service, it will be difficult for him to be more explicit.
I hope that he will be able to say two things. The first is that his concept of integration and control from the centre will be used to give greater freedom in the field and greater freedom in the regions and areas. Taking a commercial organisation as an example, the degree to which Marks & Spencer have allowed their stores local control depends partly upon the efficiency of the amount of centralisation, and perhaps that could be emulated by the right hon. Gentleman.
It is difficult to exaggerate the importance of the local element and I hope that when we consider the whole question of area health boards the right hon. Gentleman will remember that he may repay on the welfare social security side the responsibilities which some local authorities fear that they are losing on the health side. I for one would prefer to see a more co-ordinated effort in health and social security based on the unit of elected local government, whatever that may turn out to be. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will be able to give us a few of his thoughts on this.
I want, finally, to refer to decentralisation within Whitehall. My hon. Friend the Member for Chelsea hoped that the new Ministry would be able to devote its attention, freed from a certain amount of detail, to planning and considering the future and trends. The right hon. Gentleman is a great one for Specialist Committees of the House of Commons and I wonder whether he has considered the possibility of some of the functions or the day-to-day organisation of the Health Service being delegated to an organisation coming under the framework of his Ministry, but not within it, and being answerable to a Specialist Committee on health for its day-to-day control.
I am sure that whatever else he is trying to do, if the new organisation in local government or area health boards and the other proposals contained in the Green Paper are to be fitted coherently into this proposal, the right hon. Gentleman must ensure a reasonable degree of democratic control at local and central level and, above all, the use of the methods of communication which will be available to him to make people realise that he is concerned with them and not merely with a tidy administrative structure.

6.20 p.m.

Mr. Crossman: With the leave of the House, I would like to say a few words in reply. I would like to start with the hon. Member for Chelsea (Mr. Worsley), and his very pertinent query as to why anyone wanted to become a Secretary of State. Let me tell him why. It is not that I did not like being Lord President of the Council. It is always nice being a President and, if I had been on the Board of Education in the old days, I might have been President of the Board of Education long ago. It was simply not a question of accepting a substitute for this, it was all to do with the merger.
I learned a great deal about the intricacies of Whitehall, discovering the difficulties of not offending Departmental susceptibilities. It is easy enough if one Department swallows another. One has only to have a negative Resolution, and one can do almost anything one likes, under a Minister. If one is to create a new Ministry, under which no susceptibilities are injured, and if it is a Depart-

ment of Health and Social security, genuinely new and created so that each part is equal, then this requires a Secretary of State to achieve it.
I hope that the hon. Gentleman will appreciate that it was not, therefore, my just wanting a new title. It was a belief that the Department would prefer it that way, even if we have a very good debate as he result of an affirmative Order at night.
The hon. Gentleman was also quite right in saying that one must be modest about this. It is exactly what he said, a first step, and I think that it is in the right direction. I would go further and say that it will be justified very largely not by what it does for itself, but by what it leads to. I should not be at all content to stay put at this point. It would not be a monumental advance to put these two Ministries together and then stay put.
I must admit to the right hon. Gentleman for Kingston-upon-Thames (Mr. Boyd-Carpenter)—he is watching me at work—that I have been given enormous ambitions. When I look at the list of the things I am asked to take over, and the list of my colleagues that I would passionately offend in the course of so doing, it is astonishing. I would remove from the Minister of Housing and Local Government all that he likes best, from the Home Secretary what he likes best and, most dangerous of all, from the First Secretary all that she likes best. At the end of this time I shall be a popular, successful new Secretary of State.
It is nice to have the ideas given me, but we must take it as a first step and be serious, and say that this has been done now because we want a powerful new Ministry so that when different things come up, the Seebohm Report and the Green Paper, and the rest, we are in a very powerful position -from which to see that the changes get through, without complete inter-departmental deadlock, which is a risk.
I shall ask the House to wait a little to see what happens, resting content with the assurance that it is true that I would not be content with this step. What we have in this Ministry is the first, not the last, step. It will be a very shortsighted thing to think that we have made a great change for the better, although we have made some quite useful changes.
The right hon. Gentleman asked me a specific question. He asked where my headquarters were to be. I shall probably relieve the anxieties of my hon. Friend the Member for Willesden, West (Mr. Pavitt), who knows so much about the Health Service, when I say that my headquarters will be at Alexander Fleming House, Elephant and Castle, and not in John Adam Street. It is not just that it is more comfortable—it is not comfort I seek, but convenience. This is essential. It is a better and bigger building, but it is also extremely important for the reasons which my hon. Friend gave, with great tact.
My hon. Friend said that I know a lot about social security and a little about health. I know more now than I did four months ago, because I have been studying. He is quite right about social security. I feel myself at home. I know the gambits of pensioneering, I have learned it for a long time, and I feel deeply at home in John Adam Street, whereas I am a new boy at the Elephant and Castle. He is quite right that this is one of the major things which made me take the decision.
I said that I would go to the place I knew least and have my headquarters there. The people there have to be convinced that I am their Minister, not merely taking it on as an appendage to that about which I know something. Very naturally, the centre of balance will in that sense be at the Elephant and Castle, and the central planning headquarters will be at my headquarters. The Departments which are merged will be merged into that building.
On the other hand, I have been very anxious, because there are very important things going on in the Ministry of Social Security, to keep in touch there, and I have asked my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Mr. Swingler) to be there for the time being. I am not intending to move the Parliamentary Secretaries at present because I am not sure, first, how many Parliamentary Secretaries I need and, secondly, where they should be. I am leaving them for the time being, but am asking my hon. Friend to take up quarters in John Adam Street, because I really must concentrate, in the short run, apart from the details of preparing the pension plan, in really getting to know

and understand the problems of the Health Service, which, as everyone has emphasised, is a very considerable thing to do.
I have had luck in knowing six months before I took over that I was to do so. I have been able to do a little in that time of meeting and contacting. Now the serious work has to start.
The other thing that I must explain is to do with functional divisions. We cannot start with this at the beginning. We have only to look at the Ministry of Defence in its stages of development to see that it did not start with functional divisions between its Ministers of State. It started by taking them as they were and gradually forming functional divisions. We are a long way from that at present, and having asked my hon. Friend to concentrate for the time being in John Adam Street, I shall ask the other new Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Dover (Mr. Ennals), to be with me in Alexander Fleming House.
As is known, I shall have two Permanent Secretaries there. The Permanent Secretary of the big merged Department, and the No. 2 Permanent Secretary, who is a specialist on health. I have asked him and my hon. Friend the Member for Dover, again in the first instance, for the first three or four months, to do the detailed running of the Health Service while we organise the central headquarters and central intelligence units, the handling of the Seebohm Report and the Green Paper. I shall ask my hon. Friend to delve and to learn. He will have a Permanent Secretary of great experience, Mr. A. S. Marre, who has come back from what was the Ministry of Labour. He will be there to give us the confidence of his staff.
I shall have the Permanent Secretary of the former Ministry of Social Security with me, learning how to run the huge thing at the top, while having a specialist on the Health Service with whom my hon. Friend the Member for Dover will work. I cannot say more than this; it is temporary for the first three, four or five months.
I was asked about war pensions. I entirely agree that this is a tradition, which, directly I saw it, I realised was one which we cannot and do not want to change. War pensions are very special, and the Ministry is proud of their being


very special. Each case is regarded as a special case, with the possibility of Ministerial interest. We will certainly keep this tradition as long as war pensions last, which, in a sense, is not forever, because there are a dwindling number of cases.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: Does the right hon. Gentleman mean that one of his Parliamentary Secretaries will concentrate primarily on war pensions work?

Mr. Crossman: Yes, there will be someone primarily responsible for war pensions, and he will do the regular touring visits which are so important.
The right hon. Gentleman also asked me about computers and whether we could not use our computer at Newcastle to help the Ministry of Health. I hesitate to tell him how computers breed computers in this world, but a new Ministry of Health computer has been constructed at Fleetwood, and I have to reveal to the right hon. Gentleman that we now have other computers at Newcastle because of the new pension plan. He must not blame me, because I told him, and he knows it very well, why that great computer is there. It is because he invented the most intricate graduated pension plan, a plan so complicated that one could not possibly work it without a huge, brand-new computer. I said at the time that, however bad his plan was, it would at least enable us to have machinery to develop a splendid new plan. I am deeply grateful to him. A computer is there, but I fear that it is a little brother compared with those which are growing up now, because it is true that we shall take over more and more clerical work with computers.
I admit that, in introducing computers, in the short run one increases the number of civil servants. Once computers are there, however, transfers take place. No one can predict with certainty how large a subtraction of staff will occur in that particular case.
May I now turn to the question of staff cuts. In headquarters, we will obviously look for rationalisation. We can have hopes there of staff savings as the result of the merger. I would not be frank with the House if I gave great hopes of staff reductions in the regions on the social security side, for two reasons. The first is that we have greatly

increased and improved our social services recently, and we knew that if we greatly improved the standard of the social services, increasing the amount of money paid out, we would have to see that there was no abuse of what we had done.
We have to ensure that investigation is adequate and we have to consider the number of people who make visits. People should not just work behind the counter and have no time to visit the old people. I can give no assurance that the number of people engaged in this kind of work in the new Ministry will be reduced. If the House insists that we be absolutely sure that we cover all pos sibilities of abuse, more, and not fewer, staff will be required. Therefore, in this respect, I do not see any chance of a great reduction being made. However, I see a chance of some reductions being made in headquarters staff.
I turn to the speech of my right hon. Friend the Member for Llanelly (Mr. James Griffiths), for whose congratulations I am very grateful. What a charming speech he made to remind us of the tradition which he created! I entirely agree with him. One of the most invigorating things is to go to Newcastle and see what a difference to a development area a great Government Department has made.
I have learnt that people there are grateful for Government Departments because this is the kind of work that they like. The wages and salaries seem to be good. The stability of the work is excellent. The people work better. Those who are crowded together in London fall over themselves and there is competition with other forms of business for a quality of staff which one cannot readily get in the overcrowded South. First-rate staff is obtainable in a development area. If I can do anything in the time that I am at the Ministry to ensure that we get administrative devolution of this kind, with the recruitment of staff in areas which are grateful rather than having offices in areas in which there is a turnover of 70 or 80 per cent. in staff because there is over-full employment, I shall try to do it.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Llanelly asked about Welsh devolution in health matters. I say to him, "Despair not, friend. It is something which I shall


think of very soon when the take-over is done". This matter is not excluded from my mind. Things will remain the same in Scotland, and I would not dare to upset that as a first contribution by me to Anglo-Scottish relations.
We have been asked whether we can bring together the social security offices. We can. As I travel round, I see that we have done this to some extent. Since the merger of the Supplementary Benefits Commission, in 1966, out of 983 offices we have merged 141—[HON. MEMBERS: "Local offices?"] Yes, local offices. In 141 cases, we have merged the area offices of the Supplementary Benefits Commission with the National Insurance local offices. Therefore, we have gone a little way. Those are mostly places in which we have better offices.
Turning to the question of the bad offices, I agree with the hon. Member for Liverpool, Garston (Mr. Fortescue). We had to take over hundreds of offices all over the place, and we have inherited some in poor condition. I did not think that he was fair when he said that I gave higher priority to making hospitals nice with flowers than to offices. If I had to choose, I would give it to the hospitals first and the offices second.

Mr. Fortescue: I was not referring to the amenities of patients in hospital. I meant; the amenities of people visiting the patients in hospital

Mr. Crossman: Patients it hospital are allowed to have flowers. I do not say that this is as important a matter as all that. We have to improve our offices. I congratulate the people at the old Ministry of Labour for what they achieved. Sometimes at a local Ministry of Labour office there is a sense of the Government competing with employers as an employment exchange or bureau. That is excellent. I shall compete with the First Secretary of State in insisting in getting as much money spent on our offices as she does on her offices. That is a good form of competition which I hope will be accepted by the House.
I turn to the very interesting speech of the hon. Member for Hertford (Lord Balniel), which was echoed by the hon. Member for Farnham (Mr. Maurice Macmillan). I want to put to the House

my doubts about what was meant concerning devolution. The Health service is already a highly decentralised service. Some people think that it is too decentralised and that there is too great a variety in the standard of treatment between one regional hospital board and another. There is devolution in terms of the executive councils.
There is devolution in each of the three parts of the Health Service to local bodies and the Ministry acting largely in an advisory capacity. I am not sure how much farther we can go in this process. I shall keep my mind open. But I shall be surprised if anybody believes that further devolution of this kind will save staff. This I cannot understand. Centralisation has standardisation advantages. I am a little baffled about what is meant by devolution in this connection.
I give one reflection to the House on local democracy. Here we have a mixture of people who are partly from local authorities and partly from the Health Service. When I have them all together, I always ask the same question. I say, "Would you tell me what you think? Which service is better run—the service with elected local councillors or the service without?". I cannot say that there is a unanimous view that the service with elected local councillors is better. I have learnt enough to know that it is not true to say that the simple solution is to get It all done locally. Even those who come from local authorities have their doubts about that as the solution. I think I know what is meant when people say that we must have local democracy and grass roots democracy, but handing over matters to local authorities like that without question is open to discussion. I am prepared to learn. I do not yet know the answer, and I shall not know it for some months.
I am glad to have support for the Central Intelligence Unit. One of the great possibilities of this new merged Ministry is a unit which can look synoptically at the whole of our social services, which include housing and education. We need a central intelligence unit for that purpose. That is one of the great advantages of the Ministry.
I think that I have managed to answer all the points which have been raised by


hon. Members who have been extremely kind to me as a newcomer to this job.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,
That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that the Secretary of State for Social Services Order, 1968, be made in the form of the draft laid before this House on 16th October.

To be presented by Privy Councillors or members of Her Majesty's Household.

POLICE FORCES, ESSEX AND SOUTHEND (AMALGAMATION)

6.38 p.m.

Sir Stephen McAdden: I beg to move:
That the Essex and Sonthend-on-Sea Police (Amalgamation) Order 1968, a draft of which was laid before this House on 3rd July, be withdrawn.
If I push on apace, it is not because I believe that this subject is not worthy of a much longer debate, but because it will suit the convenience of the House and its servants if we come to a decision by 7 o'clock.
In the preceding debate, we discussed the question of mergers. We now come to a suggested compulsory amalgamation to which my hon. Friend the Member for Southend, West (Mr. Channon) and myself are strongly opposed. This amalgamation has never been sought by the County of Essex or by the County Borough of Southend. In fact, they are strongly opposed to it. To add further piquancy to the matter, may I say that I live in the County Borough of Southend and my hon. Friend the Member for Southend, West lives in the County of Essex and that we are both united in our belief that this Order should be withdrawn.
The main links of the County Borough of Southend are not with the County of Essex, but with London. The county borough's problems are different from those of the County of Essex. This was brought out very clearly at the inquiry. The two main roads from London to the County Borough of Southend—the A.13 and the A.127—carry about 3,000 to 4,000 vehicles an hour which produce traffic problems in Southend which are not reproduced in other towns of comparable size. Our view is that this mixture of vehicles and pedestrians is probably unique in the country. In addition, we have 8 million visitors to Southend a year.
This enormous addition to the local population presents problems for the county borough which are not experienced by the Essex County police force. Nothing that I say will, I hope, suggest that I am denigrating the efficiency of that force. I often travel through that force's area and I shall be extremely careful about saying anything which may upset its members. But they do not have the


experience and expertise of tackling the problems which obtain in Southend which is possessed by the Southend County borough police force.
Consider, for instance, the question of vice, which is uppermost in many people's minds today with the increase in drug peddling, prostitution and the like. One does not have those problems in the County Borough of Southend-on-Sea to anything like the degree that one would expect to have them in a town so close to London, absorbing 8 million visitors every year. This is because the county borough has a very efficient and capable vice squad of people who know their way around the town and the people who live there and are familiar with those who are likely to practise these forms of vice, to which we are strongly opposed.
The airport presents problems for Southend-on-Sea. Six hundred thousand passengers pass through Southend-on-Sea Airport. There has been the closest possible liaison between the police in Southend-on-Sea County Borough police force and the police in Ostend, Calais and Rotterdam. I doubt whether there is anything like the same liaison between the police forces of Harwich and the Hook of Holland. Certainly, we believe it to be important to maintain the closest possible liaison with the people who are our nearest neighbours across the sea.
It is inevitable that under the new scheme the police force for Southend County Borough will be less efficient. It will not have as many men capable of policing the county borough. The Southend County Borough police force is up to strength. The Essex County force is notoriously under strength. The effect of this compulsory amalgamation will be the taking away of an efficient police force from Southend ostensibly to improve the services in the county, whereas, clearly, what should be done is to improve recruitment in the County of Essex and not try to denude the Southend County Borough of a police force of which it is particularly proud, which does a first-class job and which the people would be very sorry to lose.
As was made clear at the inquiry, Southend County Borough is prepared to pay more money than is recommended under the Order to retain the efficient police force which it now has. Why

should a question of this kind be decided by people who have nothing whatever to do with Essex County or Southend County Borough? We have not been asked our opinion on this matter. It is imposed upon us by the Home Secretary, who has probably never been to Southend in his life. I do not remember his having been there. What knowledge has he of the deep feeling which exists and the great pride which the people of Southend have in their local police force?
The Inspector of Constabulary has said that there will be a shortage of manpower for some time, but it does not exist in Southend. The shortage of manpower which exists in the Essex County police force will now be imposed upon Southend, also. I know that police officers in the county borough cannot be forced to move from Southend if their home is already there, but if they refuse to move into different parts of the Essex County there is no doubt that they will suffer in promotion.
There are many other points which I could make. I have a whole page of things that I would like to say to the House, but I have no desire, Mr. Speaker, to keep you or the servants of the House after 10 o'clock to listen to them. Perhaps if I were to send you a private note, you would have sympathy with the position in which I find myself.
In the inspector's report, when he recommended that amalgamation should take place, he criticised the Southend County Borough police force, in effect, because it has dealt with a number of offences by caution rather than taking punitive action against motorists. I am not sure that that is a bad thing. It is a very good thing if a police force can so conduct its affairs that motorists receive a caution instead of being punished. I am not at all sure that that is a valid criticism of the Southend County Borough police force.
I want to leave time for my hon. Friend the Member for Southend, West to dilate, as time will permit him, on the many problems on which I have not been able to touch. I finish by saying that it is foolish to weaken the admittedly good police force in Southend—Her Majesty's inspectors of constabulary all admit it—without guaranteeing any improvement in the combined area. Instead of having one good police force


and one under strength, there will be two under strength. For these and other reasons on which my hon. Friend will touch, we ask that the Order be withdrawn.

6.45 p.m.

Mr. H. P. G. Channon: I support every word that my hon. Friend the Member for Southend, East (Sit S. McAdden) has said about the objections in principle which he and I and the overwhelming majority—indeed, everyone to whom I have spoken in the County Borough of Southend has to the Order amalgamating the Southend and Essex police forces. If I do not reiterate the points made by my hon. Friend, that does not mean that I do not approve strongly what he has said and object strongly to the Order.
Apart from the points of principle, there are two matters of more detail to which I hope that the Minister will give his attention. The first is the strong comments made by the inspector at the inquiry about the position of the clerk to the new police authority. The Under-Secretary of State would, I think, agree that if we are to have police takeovers, especially when they are strongly contested, and certainly when neither authority asks for it and one strongly objects, it must be the case that for the future happiness and working of the force it should be seen to be, not a takeover, but an amalgamation.
Nothing could be further from achieving that if all three chief offices—chief constable, treasurer and clerk to the new force—are to be in the hands only of Essex and none in the hands of Southend. This was a point on which the inspector agreed strongly with the Southend point of view. He says so in his report. I do not ask the Under-Secretary to confirm or deny what the inspector has said, but I ask him to direct his attention to the new police authority before an appointment is made.
The second thing that I would like the hon. Gentleman to consider is the extraordinary behaviour under the Order in the taking over of that part of the police premises in Leigh which has been owned by the Corporation for 50 years, for which the police force has paid a rent for 50 years and which, under the draft Order, it is proposed should be expro-

priated by the new police authority in a way that would mean if the police ever vacate the premises, the people of Southend will have to buy back the property that was originally theirs in the first instance. At the same time, development of a vital part of the Borough of Southend could be frustrated by a police authority which did not consist in the majority of representatives of Southend County Borough. This is a disgraceful case of expropriation and I hope that the Under-Secretary may be able to do something about it.
My hon. Friend the Member for Southend, East made it clear that we have no criticism whatever of the Essex police force. As my hon. Friend has said, I live in the County of Essex and I have nothing but praise for them. Over the period during which the Southend police force has been operating, the people of Southend have been used to a service which has commanded their respect and which is worthily looking after the people of Southend.
The only possible argument in favour of amalgamation is that it would increase the efficiency of the police and serve residents better than they have been served in the past. All the evidence flies in the face of this. There is no doubt whatever that the police cover in Southend will be less than it is at present. There is no doubt whatever that it is likely that the police force will become less rather than more efficient. That is a tragedy for the people of Southend, who have been served so well in the past.
I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Southend, West would like to be associated with me in saying that if, after tonight's debate, the Southend police force is to come to an end on 1st April, we would like to pay tribute to all those, past and present, who have served the Borough of Southend so well during the past half century.
It is a tragedy for the people of Southend that this amalgamation should take place. Even at this late hour, I ask the Government to look at the matter again and consider whether they are doing a service to the population by making this compulsory Order. If they must get away with it—I hope that they do not—I hope that at least they will consider the important points of detail which, I too, have brought to the attention of


the House. I object strongly to the Order and I hope that even at this late minute, second thoughts may yet prevail.

6.50 p.m.

The Joint Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Elystan Morgan): The hon. Gentlemen the Members for Southend, East (Sir S. McAdden) and Southend, West (Mr. Channon) have pressed their case with fervour and with conviction. Very briefly, I should like to deal with the main facts which constitute the history of the case over the last two and a half years.
The first formal notification to the two police authorities of the proposed amalgamation was in an official letter of 17th May, 1966, on the eve of the general statement to the House of Commons by my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Stechford (Mr. Roy Jenkins) on the nationwide programme of amalgamation. Southend's initial reaction was to open discussions with Essex in view of what Southend considered to be the inevitability of amalgamation, but at the same time to seek to impress on the Home Office the so-called special features of Southend's case.
Thus, on 23rd November, 1966, my predecessor, my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Lincoln (Mr. Taverne), received a deputation, which included both the hon. Gentlemen the Members of Parliament for Southend, and which sought the assistance of the Home Office in Southend's efforts to persuade Essex to agree in advance to a district structure for the new force which would mean that an officer of the rank of assistant chief constable would he stationed in Southend, and to a provision in any voluntary amalgamation scheme nominating the clerk for the time being of Southend County Borough Council as the clerk of the combined police authority. Throughout all the negotiations the attitude of the Essex police authority towards the general question has been that though it does not seek amalgamation with Southend it does not oppose it.
Soon after the meeting with my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Lincoln, Southend's discussions with Essex broke down on the refusal of Essex first, to agree to an ex officio clerkship,

and, second, to undertake that the police area should be divided into districts for operational purposes with a district assistant chief constable stationed in Southend as a permanent arrangement. Then on 3rd February, 1967, the Home Office was accordingly notified—and I quote—that
in view of the unwillingness of the Essex police authority to agree to the reasonable compromise put forward, the Watch Committee has not been able to agree terms for a voluntary amalgamation.
A statutory notice of compulsory amalgamation was, therefore, issued by the Home Office on 6th March, 1967. A local inquiry into objections to the proposed compulsory amalgamation scheme was held by Mr. E. S. Fay, Q.C., in September, 1967. Southend objected wholly to the proposed amalgamation, and also, without prejudice to the generality of its objection, to certain features of the proposed scheme which Southend wished to see replaced or supplemented by alternative provisions. Essex joined issue at the inquiry both with Southend and with the Home Office on some of the detailed provisions of the proposed scheme.
Mr. Fay's report of the inquiry published in January came to the firmest possible conclusion that the proposed amalgamation was justified. The two authorities were notified on 2nd January this year of the Home Secretary's intention to proceed with a compulsory amalgamation scheme. Following lengthy consultation on matters of detail the present draft scheme was finally laid before Parliament on 3rd July. It provides for the combined police authority to be constituted by 1st December and for the new combined force to come into operation on 1st April next year, the latter date having been urged upon the Home Office by both authorities in place of the earlier intention to make this scheme fully operative by 1st October, 1968. The new force would be known as the Essex and Southend-on-Sea Joint Constabulary.
It seems to me that the case by Southend-on-Sea pressed upon us by the two hon. Gentlemen can be summarised under three headings: first, that the loss of local control would diminish efficiency; secondly, that the policing in Southend would no longer be in the hands of men with intimate knowledge of the area; and thirdly, that by the


amalgamation the level of police cover in Southend would be reduced so as to make good large deficiencies in the present Essex police force.
The fact that an amalgamation proposal is made should not be taken to reflect adversely upon the efficiency of the police force in question. The efficiency of the Southend police force within its boundaries is acknowledged. In his report of the inquiry into the objections to the proposed amalgamation scheme, Mr. Fay pays a tribute, with which the Home Secretary and I wish to be associated, to the efficiency and the well-earned reputation of this force. Nevertheless, the first object of an amalgamation of this kind, and the criterion by which any objections to it ought to be judged, is to promote an even greater level of efficiency over the combined police area as a whole.
The Home Secretary is satisfied, having carefully studied Mr. Fay's report, that this amalgamation is fully justified in those terms. If this amalgamation is carried through, Southend will form an important part of the new force, and as such it will be under the day to day command, of no doubt, a very senior officer. Such an officer would be quite competent to maintain a close liaison with the local authorities at Southend.
The conclusions reached by Mr. Fay on this point were threefold. First, the senior officer who would be in day to day command at Southend would undoubtedly be well able and well equipped to deal with local emergencies; the fact that in a special emergency he had immediate access to advice and assistance at headquarters would be a source of strength rather than weakness, and there is no reason to suppose that the necessary liaison with the Southend Council would not remain unimpaired. Secondly, that any interchange of personnel which might take place would be of equal value to both areas.
Thirdly, that the fear that the ratio of police officers to population in Southend would be diluted to improve the average number of police operating elsewhere in Essex has, perhaps, some substance, since it is not impossible that the chief constable of the combined force—this is an important point which he has under consideration—would be faced with circum-

stances which required him slightly to reduce the average police cover—that is, the police cover outside peak holiday times—in Southend; but this possibility is more than offset, I submit, by the reasonable certainty of greater efficiency of the police in Southend stemming from integration with a large force with its better promotion prospects, wider fund of experience, greater provision of specialised services, and greater flexibility, than the county borough force can at present claim.
I must put it to the House that the case put forward by Southend is for a rejection of this amalgamation scheme, and, presumably, any other amalgamation scheme. I doubt very much whether the detail of this scheme is really in issue. The result of this would be that Southend would be left with a smaller force of 374 officers. It would be smaller as a force by several hundreds than any other force in England and Wales.
The question of the clerkship of the authority—I appreciate what has been said by Mr. Fay in this connection—is basically a local government matter and not a matter upon which the Home Office should, or could, comment.

On the Question of the Leigh-on-Sea police station, I shall he happy to write to both hon. Members in full detail.

Question put and negatived.

FOREMEN AND STAFF MUTUAL BENEFIT SOCIETY (APPLICA TION OF RULES) ETC. (No. 2) BILL (By Order)

Order for Second Reading read.

7.0 p.m.

Mr. John Smith: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I submit that the Bill is out of order for four reasons, each of which is by itself conclusive. As the House is aware, this Measure has had a chequered career so far. It has been introduced more than once as a public Bill, which is what it should be, but without success. Next it was introduced as a Private Bill and then as a Scottish Provisional Order. But it was then ruled, under the 1936 Act, that
it raises questions of public policy of such novelty and importance …


that it could not proceed as a Scottish Provisional Order. Now Erskine May, on page 873, states:
… there are four principles which have been followed in determining that a Private Bill should not be allowed to proceed as such, but should be introduced as a Public Bill. These are as follows:
(1)"—
and this is the first and presumably therefore the most important reason given by Erskine May—
That public policy is affected.
It has already been ruled by the Chairman of Committees of the House of Lords and the Chairman of Ways and Means here that this Bill
… raises questions of public policy of … novelty and importance …".
That has already been ruled and is no longer, therefore, a matter of opinion. I therefore submit that the Bill cannot proceed.
Secondly, Erskine May goes on to give another reason for not allowing a Private Bill to proceed, namely, that:
… though partly of a private nature has as its main object a public matter.
I submit that in the light of the Ruling I have just mentioned, this principle also knocks out the Bill.
But, even if it does not, the evidence that this is a public matter is before our eyes. The Foremen's Society is a Scottish Society. Would so many hon. Members dare to intervene if this were a private, local Scottish matter? We all know what happens when an English Member speaks on Scottish matters. Of course this is a public matter, otherwise most of us would not be here; otherwise this Measure would not have been introduced more than once already as a public Bill—indeed, on one occasion as a public Bill by a right hon. Gentleman who is now a Cabinet Minister and therefore, one must suppose, a responsible person. It is surely sophistry to claim at this stage that it is not a public matter.
Next, it happens that, some years ago, before I became a Member of this House, I, as Treasurer of the National Association of Almshouses, helped to promote a private Bill for the benefit of our members; and your predecessor ruled as follows:
… the Bill is promoted by an Association on behalf of its members, the number of whom

is not fixed. … The Bill therefore is one of general application. … I am therefore ruling that … this Bill is not proper to proceed as a Private Bill, and it must be withdrawn."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 23rd February, 1959; Vol. 600, c. 787]
That Ruling applies word for word to the present case. That was an association, this is an association. That was on behalf of its members, this is on behalf of its members; the number of members of that Association was not fixed, the number of members of this Association is not fixed. What possible distinction can be drawn between the two cases?
I make it clear that I do not speak out of pique, because the objectives of the Bill I sought to introduce in 1959 were later effected, quite properly, by a Public Bill, as the objectives of this Bill may well he effected later by a Public Bill.
Finally, Mr. Speaker, your predecessor also ruled the Almshouses Bill out of Order
…. on the ground of public policy in that it extends the powers … of an indefinite number of trust funds …"—
the trust funds which were, or might be in future, members of my Association. This Bill also extends powers of an indefinite number of members. Indeed, that is its only purpose—to extend the powers of its members to include membership of the Foremen's Society. Surely it is settled that a body promoting a Bill cannot legislate on behalf of its members.
As we all know, the way in which this place works is delicate and mysterious; it depends for its success, and even survival, on a very complicated and sophisticated web of rules and usages. I beg of you, Mr. Speaker, not to tear that web by allowing what has already been ruled to be a public matter, introduced, correctly but unsuccessfully, more than once as a Public Bill, to be pushed through Parliament as a Private Bill. It will be a precedent that none of us wants and which we should all regret.

Mr. Speaker: Before I begin, may I say that the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mr. John Smith) may assume that the right hon. Gentleman the Chairman of Ways and Means is aware of the passages in Erskine May which decide the distinction between Private and Public Bills and had these things in his mind when he decided earlier


in the year that this Bill should be regarded as a Private Bill and when he put it down for Second Reading tonight.
This is a substituted Bill, there having been a Scottish Provisional Order with the same object in respect of which, under the terms of the Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act, 1936, the Chairman of Committees of the House of Lords and the Chairman of Ways and Means of the House of Commons reported on 25th June, 1968, in a Ruling which the hon. Gentleman half quoted, that it related to matters outside Scotland:
 … to such an extent and raised questions of in public policy of such novelty and importance … 
that it should be dealt with by Private Bill and not by a Provisional Order. The present Bill was brought in as a result of that report.
It remains to consider whether the substituted Bill affects public policy to such an extent that it should be proceeded with as a public Bill. The principles governing this are set out in Eskine May in page 873, some of which the hon. Gentleman has just quoted, and a study of these reveals no reasons why the Bill should not be a Private Bill.
Although the Bill deals with an important public issue, it is confined in its effects to the members of two private organisations. In this respect, it is very different from, for example, the public Bill, entitled "Friendly Societies (Membership of Trade Unions) Bill", introduced by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Gloucester (Mr. Diamond) on 3rd June, 1964—presumably the Cabinet Minister to whom the hon. Gentleman was referring.
The hon. Gentleman has suggested that this Bill is similar to the National Association of Almshouses (Investment) Bill which my predecessor ruled, on 23rd February, 1959, to raise such matters of public policy and to be of such general application that it should not be allowed to proceed as a Private Bill. The 1959 Bill applied to all existing and future members of the National Association of Almshouses, and there were no precedents for a Private Bill applying to unnamed and unspecified bodies. Nor was there any precedent for an association of that

kind promoting a Bill on behalf of its own members.
None of these considerations appears to me to apply in relation to this Bill which is confined to specific, named and private organisations. I therefore consider that the Bill might properly be dealt with as a Private Bill, and had I not done so I would have informed the House accordingly on 16th July, when the Bill first came before the House for Second Reading.

7.10 p.m.

Mr. Russell Kerr: I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
I rise to introduce this Private Bill very conscious of the fact that I am, so to speak, the flag carrier for my union—the Association of Scientific, Technical and Managerial Staffs, and that this honour should more properly belong to other union colleagues in the House who have been here much longer than I and who have attempted on a number of previous occasions to bring to a successful conclusion the legislation proposed in the Bill. I refer particularly to my right hon. Friends the present Prime Minister and the present Chief Secretary and also to other long-serving A.S.S.E.T. members of Parliament such as my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Aston (Mr. Julius Silverman) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, North (Mr. Willey), both of whom will, I am glad to say, be seeking to catch your eye, Mr. Speaker, after I have finished.
The job of introducing the Measure falls to me, not because of any seniority I possess in this honourable House, but because unlike them, and no doubt for my sins, I happen to be both a sponsored Member of Parliament and a National Executive member of the Union, the latter of which attributes I share with my hon. Friend the Member for Poplar (Mr. Mikardo) who, to his great disappointment, cannot be present for tonight's debate. I mention this only in case it should be necessary or desirable for my interest in this legislation to be declared.
As I have said, the Bill has a long history. The most recent attempt to put an end to certain iniquitous anti-trade union rules of the Foremen and Staff Mutual Benefit Society was in June, 1964,


when my right hon. Friend the present Chief Secretary introduced as a Private Member's Bill his Friendly Societies (Membership of Trade Unions) Bill, which sought to invalidate the rules of any friendly society discriminating against members of trade unions. With no prospect of even a neutral attitude by the then Conservative Government, the Bill died the death.
More recently still, an attempt was made by A.S.S.E.T., one of the two unions which merged to form the A.S.T.M.S. in January of this year, to introduce last Autumn a Bill with this present title. The Petition for this first Bill was lodged on the normal date for lodging Petitions for Private Bills—in other words, in November, 1967. The F. & S.M.B.S. not only petitioned against the Bill but also raised the issue that, since its registered office was in Scotland, the Union should have proceeded by way of the Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act, 1936. The union's view was that, since the registered office of A.S.S.E.T. was in England and the majority of its members were resident in England and Wales and the majority of F. & S.M.B.S. members were also resident in England and Wales or carried on business there, the Union—A.S.S.E.T.—should be allowed to proceed by way of a Private Bill rather than by seeking a Provisional Order under Scottish procedure.
The F. & S.M.B.S. then took the technical point that Section 1(4) of the Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act, 1936, had not been complied with in that the union should have either sought permission prior to the presentation of the Petition to proceed by way of a Private Bill, or alternatively should have proceeded by way of Scottish Provisional Order.
This view was upheld by the Chairman of Ways and Means and was readily accepted by my union, which then, in March of this year, submitted to the Secretary of State for Scotland in the name of the newly merged Union, A.S.T.M.S., which had come into existence two months earlier, a draft Provisional Order. Under the powers entrusted to him, the Chairman of Ways

and Means subsequently ruled that the Provisional Order raised matters which ought more properly to be dealt with by Private Bill and therefore the Bill before the House tonight—a substituted Bill, Sir, as you reminded us—was introduced.
This Bill is identical with the draft Provisional Order but differs from the earlier No. 1 Bill in that it has been promoted by the newly merged union, A.S.T.M.S., not A.S.S.E.T., and also in that there are several small changes in the wording of the Preamble. Otherwise, in essence the two Bills are identical.
I apologise to the House for this wearisome piece of legal history, but since this is, in a sense, an historical occasion, being, so far as we know, the very first time that a trade union has been prepared to go to the very great trouble and expense of promoting a Private Bill, I thought it as well that the path by which we have arrived at this moment of decision should be made reasonably clear to the House. So much by way of introduction.
The question hon. Members may well ask is—why has my union thought this matter to be of sufficient importance to go to all this trouble and expense to try to nullify those provisions in the rules of the Foremen and Staff Mutual Benefit Society that we find so offensive?
Perhaps at this stage I should say a word or two about this Society. The F. & S.M.B.S. is a body which was founded in 1899 and which comprises on the one hand employers in the engineering and shipbuilding industries—so-called contributory members—and, on the other, ordinary members recruited mainly from men and women in supervisory or management grades of industry. Each side at present pays a contribution of 2s. 6d. a week, and in return the ordinary members receive small sickness and retirement benefits. Membership of the Society is about 64,000 and apparently its accumulated funds at present are close to £17 million.
So far everything in the garden is lovely, so to speak. Now we come to something which must make most fair-minded people begin to question just how genuinely friendly this so-called friendly society really is, at least to those


who happen not to share the antedeluvian political and industrial views of many of its contributory or employer members.
I refer to the Society's notorious Rule 7, which I would call the joker in the pack, except that its effect on the lives and livelihoods of many decent men and women is far from a joke. Under Rule 7 an ordinary member who at the date of his admission to the Society is a member of a trade union, whether registered or unregistered, is required to resign forthwith from the said trade union. Moreover, an ordinary member who, after admission to the Society, joins any trade union is required immediately to resign from the Society, and any ordinary member who refuses so to do under Rule 7 not only ceases to have any claims on the funds of the Society but also forfeits any right for return of contributions he may have paid and, indeed is liable to make good to the Society any funds "improperly" received by him.
In addition, under the Society's Rule 11 the offending member can also be expelled. In case the House should think that this is an unlikely happening, I point out that in 1966 three members of my union were expelled by the Society in this way, despite strong representations made by my union on their behalf.
Therefore, any ordinary member who has the temerity to join a trade union is in danger of losing all his contributions to the Society which, if the member has belonged to the Society for a lengthy period, could represent a very considerable sum of money. Even more importantly, this pernicious provision can only act as a very powerful disincentive to joining a trade union, particularly for middle aged men contemplating retirement within, say, 10 years or so.
There is another highly dubious aspect to this matter, as a number of my union's industrial officials can testify. Very often the local representative of the F. & S.M.B.S. in a particular firm is a member of the personnel management and when my union has commenced union organisation among eligible personnel in a particular firm pressure is frequently put upon our members to leave the union. We have evidence that the F. & S.M.B.S. have been given facilities to interview staff individually on the firm's premises in order to persuade them

to remain in the Society and thus abandon the prospect of union membership.
Worse than that, we also have evidence that many firms make it known to people seeking promotion that they are expected to join the F. & S.M.B.S. Obviously, a refusal to do so is likely to incur the considerable displeasure of their employer and may well result in the loss of the contemplated promotion.
In the light of these somewhat un-savoury facts, it is clear to me and to my union that, though the F. & S.M.B.S. is ostensibly a friendly society, the main reason it is supported by the more reactionary elements in British industry is its anti-trade union rule. That fact, on occasion, has been openly and freely admitted. By the retention of this rule, the various so-called contributory or employer members are able to exercise such an influence upon relatively defenceless people that the term "industrial blackmail" immediately springs to mind.
Happily, the highly critical view that my union and I take about these practices is not confined to us. The International Labour Office, in a number of conventions ratified over the years by British Governments, has gone firmly on record against the kind of industrial blackmail embodied in the notorious Rule 7 of the F. and S.M.B.S. To give one example, Convention 98, Article 1 says in Part (1):
Workers shall enjoy adequate protection against acts of anti-union discrimination in respect of their employment.
It goes on:
(2) Such protection shall apply more particularly in respect of acts calculated to (a) make the employment of a worker subject to the condition that he shall not join a union or shall relinquish trade union membership; or, (b) cause the dismissal of or otherwise prejudice a worker by reason of union membership or because of participation in union activities outside working hours or, with the consent of the employer, within working hours.
Only the most prejudiced of men would deny that the anti-trade union rules of the F. and S.M.B.S. offend both the spirit and the intention of this I.L.O. Convention.
Support for our view comes also from a somewhat surprising quarter, namely, the National Board for Prices and Incomes, which was asked to report on the pay and conditions in the engineering


industry of supervisory, clerical and technical workers. In its report of December, 1967, the Board had this to say:
To help with the rationalisation of pay structures for staff workers, we felt that there must be a considerable improvement in both the formal and informal relations between the employers and the staff unions. This is made clear by the fact that, at domestic level, the employers do not formally recognise union staff representatives while many still support the Foremen and Staff Mutual Benefit Society—an organisation considered by the unions to be designed to provide a financial incentive for employees not to become, or cease to be, union members.
Among its immediate recommendations, the Board stated:
Employers should reconsider their attitude towards the Foremen and Staff Mutual Benefit Society.
It is perhaps gilding the lily to add that there is also the dignified but enormously weighty verdict of the Royal Commission, in the Donovan Report published only last June. Referring to the Foremen and Staff Mutual Benefit Society, it says in paragraph 252:
In our view it is quite foreign to the purposes of a Friendly Society that it should prescribe in its rules that no one can be a member, and draw benefits, if he is a trade unionist. If the State's policy is to encourage collective bargaining through the medium of representative trade unions, since this is in the public interest, then such a rule as Rule 7 is contrary to the public interest. The contract between the Society and its members is not, of course, a contract of employment; and it would go far beyond what is necessary to deal with this particular problem if the law were to enact that such stipulations in all contracts were void. It should be sufficient in our view to provide that no Friendly Society should have such a rule, and we so recommend.

An Hon. Member: Unanimously.

Mr. Kerr: As one of my hon. Friends says, unanimously.
Owing to the limitations on what can be done by a Private Bill, it was not possible in the Bill before the House to provide that the F. and S.M.B.S. should not discriminate against any trade unionists. All that we can do at this stage is to provide that it shall not discriminate against A.S.T.M.S. members. However, I am authorised to say on behalf of my union that, if the Bill is given a Second Reading, my union will immediately take all possible preliminary steps to see to it that, if the Bill becomes law, the rules

of the Society are altered so as to admit all trade unionists. Therefore, we shall approach both the employer members and the ordinary members to work out the details of how the rules may be changed to admit all trade unionists, should Parliament pass the Bill.
If the House gives the Bill a Second Reading, we shall regard it as a mandate from the Commons to set on foot at once discussions so that the rules can be altered in the way indicated and all trade unionists admitted on an equal footing.
Although this contest between the F. and S.M.B.S. and my union has been both prolonged and hard fought, my colleagues and I do not regard this as a war to the death between two inevitably opposed bodies. It is our view that, once these offending provisions are removed, there is nothing to stop our Association and the F. and S.M.B.S. sharing a bed together, if I may use that expression. As we see it, the attributes of our respective organisations are complementary rather than competitive. We offer the best trade union service in Britain, but not friendly society benefits. The Society offers friendly society benefits, but no trade union service.
It is our hope and desire that, from the consummation of this unlikely but not unattractive partnership, there will be born at least one lusty offspring in the shape of greatly improved industrial relations in this all-important sector of industry.
I commend the Bill to the House.

Several Hon. Members: Several Hon. Members rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. May I announce that I have not selected the Amendment in the names of the hon. Members for Twickenham (Mr. Gresham Cooke) and Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Edward M. Taylor)? That will not affect the debate. The view for which the Amendment is a conventional euphemism will, I suspect, creep into the debate.

7.26 p.m.

Mr. Edward M. Taylor: We have all been impressed by the eloquence of the hon. Member for Feltham (Mr. Russell Kerr) and the way in which he has presented his case. However, I have not been convinced by it.
To my mind, three points stand out from the rest of what he said. The first


is his amazing act as a member and supported of A.S.T.M.S. to quote a reference from the National Board for Prices and Incomes in support of his case. It may be the first time that this has happened.
The second point which was interesting was that he spent most of the time attacking these so-called vindictive rules—[Interruption.]. He said—[Interruption.]

Mr. Speaker: Order. We have heard one side. We must hear the other side in the same orderly way.

Mr. Taylor: The hon. Gentleman spent most of his speech attacking the rules. He said that Rules 7 and 11 were vicious and vindictive and should be scrapped. He did not say where they originated and how they had come to be continued. They were not made by vicious and vindictive employers, but by members of the Society. They could have been scrapped yesterday, and they could be scrapped tomorrow if the members so decided. I suggest to hon. Gentlemen opposite that this is not a matter of rules having been manufactured from outside. They were made by the members of the Society, and they could be removed tomorrow without difficulty, should the members of the Society wish to do so.
The part of his speech which worried me a great deal was when he indicated that he was authorised by A.S.T.M.S. to say that, if the Bill became law, the rules would be changed within the Society generally and not just for A.S.T.M.S., the implication being that in the event of the rules going, A.S.T.M.S. would be in a proposition to do what many of us consider that the Bill is designed to do; that is, to make a take-over bid for a friendly society which, as the hon. Gentleman says, has assets of £16 or £17 million. The fact that he put this point and said that the rules would be changed generally confirms what some people have suspected for a long time.
The Bill is the culmination of a vindictive vendetta by A.S.T.M.S. against a friendly society of non-trade unionists who are employed as supervisors in industry—[HON. MEMBERS: "No."] I hope that my activities in industry and in this House can free me from the accusation of being anti-trade union—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] However, that is not

the issue which we are discussing. What is before us is the issue of individual liberty. I oppose the Bill because, while I believe that every man has the right, voluntarily and of his own decision, to join a trade union, equally he has the right not to joint a trade union. There is surely the same right available to non-trade unionists to organise themselves as there is to trade unionists.
The hon. Member for Feltham spoke about the pressure exercised by employers by making accommodation available to the F.S.M.B.S. when interviewing an employee. Looking at the history of industiral relations over the last three or four years, I think that to call this pressure, in the context of the activities of some trade unions, is a bit thick.
For many years there has been a campaign on the part of A.S.S.E.T. and other unions to organise supervisory grades in industry. Very strong pressures in some instances have been exercised on foremen to join a union. In the Clyde shipyards, where I worked before coming to this House, about six years ago foremen in a particular skilled trade were advised that if they did not join the staff register of the union—which was not A.S.S.E.T.—they would be deprived of employment in the event of having to return to the tools. In other instances which have been reported to me, but of which I have no personal experience, men on the shop floor have refused to work with a foreman who is not a union member.
So there are pressures, and there has been a long campaign. But many foremen, whether hon. Members opposite like it or not, do not wish to join a trade union. Many take the view that the position of foreman makes them part of the management team and that their loyalties should not come in conflict with management in the event of a labour dispute. Some hon. Members opposite may sincerely disagree, some may disagree violently, but I doubt whether they could deny that these feelings exist among a substantial number of foremen.
My view and experience is that the transfer from the shop floor to the supervisory grade is the most difficult transfer to negotiate successfully in the industrial hierarchy. It is not an easy task to be "one of the boys" one day and a supervisor the next. It is possible that some firms have been backward in providing


suitable or adequate training to equip men for this step up in industry. Certainly some progress has been made. Courses in colleges like Chester, which is associated with Strathclyde University—

Mr. John Rankin: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that in the modern shipbuilding yard, as emphasised by the one to which he has referred, now the Fairfield division of the U.C.S., the idea and the ideal is to make everyone from the manager right down to the man in the shop a member of the team to create the team spirit throughout the whole of the shipbuilding industry?

Mr. Taylor: I am aware that this is the intention. I am also aware that there has been organisation of the foremen in the Clyde shipyards. However, it is fair to point out to the hon. Member for Glasgow, Govan (Mr. Rankin), who takes such a great interest in shipbuilding matters and fights so well for the shipyards, that six years ago this was preceded by a campaign, on the part of the union which the hon. Gentleman knows so well, in which foremen in several skilled trades were told: "If you do not join the union staff register you will not get back to the tools in the event of losing your position." I think that the hon. Gentleman knows this.

Mr. Rankin: Come up to date.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. Taylor: I was saying that some advance has been made. Courses in colleges like Chester, which is associated with Strathclyde University, have given foremen the knowledge and, more important, the confidence to take on the new responsibilities of supervision. Good and confident foremen are an integral part of successful industry, and I believe that money spent on high salaries for foremen is a greater contribution to productivity than productivity agreements or piecework schemes.

Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Member is going a little wide of the Bill. This is a specific Bill.

Mr. Taylor: I agree. I am sorry, Mr. Speaker.
The most appropriate relationship for a foreman to have with his management—this is relevant to the Bill—is as an individual; not as part of a union group. This is my view. Many disagree and feel that the only way to achieve the right rewards for foremen is to have a strong union to negotiate on their behalf. This is the feeling of those who have promoted the Bill.
This is the great debate and battle in industry which has been fought for years between A.S.S.E.T. and members of the F.S.M.B.S. Quite frankly, it is a battle which A.S.S.E.T., up till now, has failed to win.
The latest figures are that over the past six years 21,000 supervisors have applied to join the F.S.M.B.S. That is 21,000 new applications in six years. In the last four years the massive campaign by A.S.S.E.T. has resulted in only 4,000 members of the F.S.M.B.S. leaving to join the union. But—and I hope right hon. and hon. Members will note this—while only 4,000 have left to join A.S.S.E.T., in the same four years, according to the figures made available to me—I am subject to correction, but I understand them to be right—2,500 A.S.S.E.T. members have resigned from the union to join the Staff Society, and 100 former F.S.M.B.S. members who had left to join A.S.S.E.T. have returned to the F.S.M.B.S. fold like prodigal sons.
Having failed in its campaign, A.S.S.E.T. now asks Parliament to win the battle for it by means of parliamentary legislation. This, I think, is absolutely wrong. Apparently its persuasive powers and pressures have been inadequate, so it is now asking Parliament to do the job which it is unable to do.
The Bill, of course, provides an opening, as the hon. Member for Feltham admitted, for A.S.S.E.T. which will not be available to other unions. If the Bill succeeds there will undoubtedly be a squalid and comprehensive drive to sweep all foremen into A.S.S.E.T. in accordance with the 100 per cent. union membership policy to which A.S.S.E.T. is, I understand, committed. I wonder whether the more thoughtful supporters of the Bill feel that this will create the best atmosphere for a successful trade union. The strength of the trade union movement is voluntary participation. When men are drummed into membership against their


better judgment that certainly cannot get the best out of trade unionism.
My own view is that the widening gap, which I foresaw when I was employed in labour relations on the Clyde, between the union officials and the shop floor membership and the neglect and disregard, in many instances, of shop floor interests and problems, stems from the creeping compulsory trade unionism which is moving through industry and the emergence of closed shops.
There are clearly two points of view about how best to serve the interests of foremen and industry. I feel that the right people to make this decision are the foreman themselves. Instead of carrying out this vindictive campaign and using Parliament to bludgeon through its point of view, A.S.S.E.T. should surely be using its resources to peacefully persuade foremen that it is in their interests to join.
But where is the evidence that members of the F.S.M.B.S. want to change their rules and join A.S.S.E.T.? It was interesting that the hon. Member for Feltham did not give us any indication of letters, secret messages and mass meetings in which members of the F.S.M.B.S. said: "Please take away this terrible rule. We desperately want to join A.S.S.E.T."

Mr. Julius Silverman: The hon. Gentleman has quoted the figure. He said that 2,000 members of A.S.S.E.T. have joined the F.S.M.B.S. and thereby were compelled to resign from A.S.S.E.T.

Mr. Taylor: I think that it proves the reverse. I said that 2,500 men have voluntarily left A.S.S.E.T. in the last four years to join the F.S.M.B.S. That shows clearly that 2,500 men have made their own decision that they prefer to be in the Society rather than in A.S.S.E.T. But I admit that 4,000 have left the Society to join A.S.S.E.T. There are conflicting views, which we accept. The relevant point is: where is the evidence that those who have decided to stay in the F.S.M.B.S. want to have these rules changed and want to join A.S.S.E.T.?
I do not doubt for one moment that if the Bill is passed most of the foremen will join A.S.S.E.T. Those of us who

are not children in industrial relations know what goes on and the pressures which can be applied. We have seen the fate of the lonely martyrs of the shop floor who have taken an individual point of view.
But there is better proof than this, even if right hon. and hon. Members opposite do not accept this particular point of view, which I believe to be correct. The fact is that a rule which offends A.S.S.E.T. could be changed tomorrow, and could have been changed yesterday, if the foremen wished it. Have they been deprived of this opportunity? The last time a decision was taken on this issue was in 1963, at a meeting attended by 210 delegates representing members of the Foremen and Staff Mutual Benefit Society. These were ordinary members, not the employers' contributors. They were there to decide whether to keep the rule, and perhaps even extend it a little to cover up a technical evasion which was discovered in circumstances outlined by the hon. Member for Feltham.
Was there a unanimous vote to scrap the rule? Was there a close division? Was there strong feeling about it? These delegates voted unanimously to maintain the rule and to strengthen it to prevent technical evasion. Hon. Gentlemen opposite may laugh, they may think that this is nonsense, but it is a fact.
If hon. Gentlemen have any doubts about what I am saying, where is their evidence that thousands of men among these 63,000 people want this rule scrapped and want to join A.S.S.E.T.? I think that they have an obligation to show that there is a vast campaign for this change. I think that if there had been this feeling we should have seen outside the House today, and perhaps even within it, a goodly number of people, and we would have received representations along those lines.
I come now, to another key issue. What right has Parliament to deny any friendly society the right to make its own rules about membership and eligibility? A.S.S.E.T. maintains that it can do a better job for foremen than they can do for themselves as non-trade unionists. Where is the evidence for that? Presumably hon. Gentlemen opposite would not have put forward that claim unless they believed it to be in the best interests


of the foremen. What evidence is there that salaries paid to A.S.S.E.T. foremen are higher than those paid to people who negotiate privately, and that their conditions of service are better? I believe that this is a matter for individual decision.
In my constituency I have only one large factory. It has a splendid record of progress, profitability, and labour relations. Most of the foremen, not all, of course, have decided to leave the Society and join A.S.S.E.T. They are, of course, entitled to make their own decision, and they have made what they regard as the right one. I uphold their right to withdraw from the Society and to join A.S.S.E.T., but to do that they must have been impressed by approaches from the union's local executive, and by the union's activities in the West of Scotland. Surely this is how it should be? A union, by its activities and by persuasion, should recruit members on the basis of competition.
Some serious allegations have been made by A.S.S.E.T., and these have been referred to obliquely today by the hon. Member for Feltham. They have been made in publications, in letters, and in documents. First, it has been maintained that the Society is in breach of the I.L.O. Conventions. The Donovan Report referred to this, but did not support that view. I agree that in the opinion of the hon. Member for Feltham and others this might be the case, but it is not something which has been accepted by authoritative bodies, on my reading of the Donovan Report. The Report does not support the view that the existence of the Society and its rules are a breach of the I.L.O. Conventions.
Secondly, it is alleged that foremen have been "dragooned into joining". The phrase used in a letter written by A.S.S.E.T. in reply to the Society on 15th September, 1966 was that men have been "dragooned into joining". This is a serious allegation. Where is the evidence of men having been dragooned into joining? If that was the situation, would not the Society have a 100 per cent. membership in several factories? Would not that be the situation if men were being forced to join, if enormous pressure was being exercised on them by employers? If that were happening, we

would see what we find in well organised trade union shops, namely, 100 per cent. membership. I know of no factory in Scotland where the Society has a 100 per cent. membership. I suggest that if there was the kind of pressure which has been alleged the Society would have a 100 per cent. membership in a large number of factories.
Thirdly, it is contended that the financial benefits from joining bribe men away from their better interest, which is to join A.S.S.E.T. The contribution referred to by the hon. Member for Feltham of 5s. a week is shared equally. Is the hon. Gentleman seriously suggesting that men's souls have been, are being, and will be bought for half a crown a week, or 5s. a week, or whatever the figure may be?
Fourthly, it is objected that the Society is given facilities on firms' premises to explain the benefits of membership. This is a ludicrous complaint when we consider the facilities which, in some circumstances, are quite rightly given to unions to hold meetings of shop stewards and members, and also the practice of some firms of collecting trade union dues, which is as forceful a pressure as one can find.
Apart from that, there are two technical aspects of the Bill to which I think hon. Members should object, even though they do not share my views. I am referring to the merits of the Bill itself. Why should we legislate on one recommendation of the Donovan Report before any other part of it has been approved in a White Paper? Hon. Gentlemen opposite may feel strongly about this issue, but I am sure they will accept that a better way of doing the job, if it has to be done, is by means of general legislation which will not confer any special privileges on members of A.S.S.E.T. as opposed to members of other trade unions.
We have had the Donovan Report, and we are now waiting for the White Paper. I wonder whether the Government are prepared to legislate in accordance with the Report? If they have no intention of doing so, perhaps they are using this Private Bill as a way of escaping their obligations to bring forward general legislation of this kind. If the Government do intend to legislate on this matter, it will be a better way of doing the job than by means of a Private Bill.

The Under-Secretary of State for Employment and Productivity (Mr. Harold Walker): Perhaps I might make it clear to the House and to the hon. Gentleman that the Government disclaim responsibility for the promotion of the Bill. It would be improper for the Government to be involved in promoting it.

Mr. Taylor: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that assurance, and I accept it from him.

Mr. John Page: Is it not surprising that at the eleventh hour and fifty-nine and three-quarters of a minute to the end of the Session the Government have given time for the Bill to be presented?

Mr. Harold Walker: On a point of order. Mr. Deputy Speaker, is not this a reflection on the Chairman of Ways and Means who has acted within the provision of the Standing Order? Surely this is a matter for him?

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Sydney Irving): I think that I can give the House guidance on this matter. It is the responsibility of the Chairman of Ways and Means to provide time for business of this sort.

Mr. Taylor: Mr. Taylor rose—

Hon. Members: Withdraw.

Mr. Roy Roebuck: On a point of order. Is it not the custom when an hon. Member has fallen so gravely into error as the hon. Member for Harrow, West (Mr. John Page) has—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Member did not have a chance to reflect on my remarks.

Mr. Taylor: Hon. Gentlemen opposite are being unkind to my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, West (Mr. John Page). They should accept that at four o'clock this afternoon I was approached by an hon. Gentleman opposite who asked whether I was prepared to pair with him for tonight's debate. I explained that I was not, but it led me to believe, perhaps unfairly, that a Whip had been issued for tonight. The point is that if a Whip was issued on this matter it would show that the Government, as opposed to individual Members, were giving their support to the Measure.

Mr. Ronald Bell: Does not my hon. Friend think that we may exonerate the Government in this case, and that this is probably a trade union Whip?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. It would be in the best interests of hon. Members if we were to come to the Bill.

Mr. Taylor: I suggest that if a majority of hon. Members opposite insist on this legislation going through the right way would be to include it in the Government's general legislation. Let me explain the point to the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire (Mr. Manuel), to whom I have been explaining many things this week. If we proceed by way of a Private Bill in this instance we are making special provisions for members of A.S.S.E.T. which are not available to the members of other trade unions. This legislation should be introduced by means of a Public Bill but all the indications are, bearing in mind the relatively small number of hon. Members on this side of the House compared with the substantial number of hon. Members opposite, that this Bill will go through.
This will be a black day for industry, I counsel the supporters of the Bill to think again. Let them remember that there is no legal, moral or financial obstacle—or any obstacle at all—to prevent members of the Foremen and Staffs Mutual Benefit Society changing the rules if they desire. There has been no indication that they wish to do so.
We must also remember that some hon. Members opposite have spent their lives fighting for freedom of organisation for trade unions. Let them remember that that freedom and liberty also implies the right of members who do not wish to join a trade union not to do so.

Mr. Archie Manuel: Does not the hon. Member realise that in the modern industrial conditions in which we live his advocacy of non-union foremen, or anyone else in industry enjoying the benefits of the fruits of trade union negotiations is quite wrong and quite foreign to trade union thinking?

Mr. Taylor: I am sorry to have to disagree again with the hon. Member. I was engaged in labour relations for five years before I came to the House and


my understanding is that whereas a nonunion engineer is affected by negotiations on the part of his union there is no union that negotiates for a non-union foreman; his wages are adjusted by private arrangements with his employer, or by way of general recommendations by the employers' associations.
I appeal to hon. Members opposite to realise what they are doing. They are ensuring that the wrong approach is being made to this problem. If hon. Members opposite felt that there trade unions were so good and had so much to offer, the right approach would be to urge a voluntary approach in order to try peacefully to persuade men to join. This is not what will happen. In a democracy those who do not wish to join a trade union and feel that it is in the interests of industry that foremen should not be organised in trade unions should be free to exercise their rights and enjoy this basic freedom.
That freedom will be lost if the Bill goes through. It is a bad Bill. It will have an adverse effect, and I hope that hon. Members opposite will rethink their case and that the House will reject this Measure.

7.54 p.m.

Mr. Albert Booth: I welcome the opportunity to speak following the hon. Member for Glasgow, Cathcarth (Mr. Edward M. Taylor). Ho has contended that the supporters of the Bill must show the House that there is an overwhelming demand among the membership of the Foremen and Staff Mutual Benefit Society for the right to join a trade union. I submit that this is a totally ludicrous proposition. I further submit that it is for the opponents of the Bill to show that any man should be denied the right to make a free and unfettered choice whether or not he should be a union member, without any financial pressure or inducement being placed upon him.
The F.S.M.B.S. has operated from the days when foremen were distinguished by their bowler hats and workmen by their cloth caps. From then until now the only people allowed into membership have been those who have been prepared to sell their industrial past or birthright, namely, the right to be members of trade unions. Is it not surprising that there

is no demand from within the membership of the Society for the right to join a trade union? One might as well expect, from the Temperance League, an overwhelming demand for the right to an extension of licensing hours.
I should declare an interest in this matter. I am a member of the Draughtsmen and Allied Technicians Association. Many people whom the F.S.M.B.S. have tried to recruit are draughtsmen. They have not had an overwhelming success in this operation, I am glad to say. Nevertheless, it is behoven to me, on behalf of D.A.T.A. to congraulate the A.S.T.M.S.—formerly A.S.S.E.T.—on bringing the Bill before the House tonight. I congratulate the Society on using legal means to achieve its end, which I would have thought hon. Members opposite would condone. When members of a trade union use methods which stray even half-a-thou either side of proper procedural forms they are quick to criticise. The A.S.T.M.S. has used a legal method to secure the interests of its membership, and I add, with a touch of envy, that I wish my union had been first in the field in this way.
I can think of no better way to express the views of D.A.T.A. about the F.S.M.B.S. than to quote from the Association's evidence to the Royal Commission on Trade Unions. In paragraph 42 it says:
D.A.T.A. has no hesitation in stating that this organisation, F.S.M.B.S., is an antiunion body, sponsored and financed by a number of employers. The continued existence of the anti-union clause in its constitution is a disgrace to industry … D.A.T.A. has fought it vigorously and, fortunately, except in one or two backward firms, the F.S.M.B.S. has recruited only a very small minority of draughtsmen.
The hon. Member for Cathcart may disagree with this contention, but I consider D.A.T.A. to be a fair-minded body, and I would not want my quote from its evidence to be thought to be taken out of context. I must therefore go one step further in quoting from its evidence. It goes on to say that
there are many engineering employers who do not seek to persuade their staff to join the F.S.M B.S. and who, in private conversation, will condemn as a social anachronism the antiunion clause in its constitution.
This is a fair summary of the current position in the industry.
We must remember that the ratio of white collar workers to boiler-suit wearers in industry is increasing, and that it is important to place no impediment in the way of white-collar trade unionism. The increase in white-collar jobs is particularly noticeable in the engineering industry.
Among the firms known to have been contributory members of F.S.M.B.S. are many famous names in the engineering industry, including Rolls-Royce Ltd., British Motor Corporation Ltd., Cammell Laird Ltd., Vickers Armstrong Engineers and Vauxhall Motors Ltd. We are, therefore, dealing not with a trifling problem. In practical terms we are dealing with a very important sector of the engineering industry.
The weekly contributions which are made by ordinary members and by contributory members of the F.S.M.B.S. are not laid down in their rules, although it is normal for half to be paid by the employer and half by the employee. It is, therefore, open to an employer to increase his share of the contribution in order to offset the attraction of trade union membership.
Although the benefits of membership of the F.S.M.B.S. are ostensibly ordinary friendly society benefits, I believe that the main reason for the support of this Society by many firms lies precisely in its anti-trade union clauses. It is relatively easy for a firm to make it known to those seeking promotion that it is expected of them that they will join the F.S.M.B.S. Once promoted, these people will understandably be reluctant to join a staff union even if that union has negotiating rights on their behalf and even if their employers have been party to a procedure agreement according to that trade union the right to represent these men. Trade unionism is, therefore, accepted by the employers on the one hand and undermined on the other hand.
The F.S.M.B.S. go further in this anti-trade union activity in that they maintain an employment department. This is to assist their ordinary members to obtain employment. I contend that this is nothing more than a black-leg agency activity. What it does, in effect, to use modern Parliamentary terms, is to give a copper-bottomed guarantee to an

employer that a man he is taking on is a non-trade unionist. That is a despicable activity.
I should not be so worried about the anti-union clauses of this Society if there were any signs that they were being modified in any way. I believe that the contrary is the situation. In fact, the anti-trade union Rule No. 7 was amended in 1963 to strengthen its anti-trade union effect.

Mr. Edward M. Taylor: By whom?

Mr. Booth: By the Society.

Mr. Taylor: By the members.

Mr. Booth: By the Society.
We are asked by the hon. Member for Cathcart why we wish to do this before we implement the Donovan Report. Why not wait for Donovan, he asks. I want to tell him why. When we discuss Donovan we shall be discussing modern, important problems of employee-employer relationship and trade union-employer relationship. We want to have behind us this anachronism which we are discussing tonight. We want to take this festering sore off the limb so that we can deal with more sophisticated treatment for more sophisticated, modern and up-to-date problems.
We are holding this debate in Human Rights Year. It would be totally appropriate for the House to pass a Measure which gave the 64,000 ordinary members of the F.S.M.B.S. the right to join a trade union and to participate in the determination of their wages and conditions in a manner befitting citizens of a democratic country.

8.5 p.m.

Mr. Ronald Bell: Mr. Speaker has ruled that the Bill is technically in order, but that leaves open the question whether, on the merits, it is a proper use of this procedure. I put it in that way because the promoters of the Bill—I will call them A.S.S.E.T., because I do not keep up-to-date with these changes in initials—have brought themselves inside the rules of order by putting forward a Preamble which is disingenuous humbug—a thoroughly dishonest document.
I am sorry that the hon. Member for Feltham (Mr. Russell Kerr) is no longer


here. He must realise, or he ought to realise, that the Bill is in order in spite of his speech. If his speech had been incorporated in the Bill, the Chairman of Ways and Means could never have passed it under the Private Bill Rule. The hon. Member for Feltham said that if the Bill were given a Second Reading, his union—A.S.S.E.T.—would treat it as a mandate from the Commons to obtain a rule in the Society which would admit all union members. The allegation upon which the Preamble is founded—that the existence of this rule in the Society's constitution represents a hardship on members of A.S.S.E.T.—is a lot of nonsense. What the rule does is to disincline some people from joining A.S.S.E.T., which is a very different matter which would not, of course, found a Private Member's Bill.
I express those views not only in the hope of perhaps inducing some thoughts among hon. Members opposite but also in the belief, which may or may not be right, that if the Bill is given a Second Reading and is carried over to the next Session, and is sent to a Private Bill Committee, it will be found that they have a procedure of proving a Preamble, and that if they were to find that the Preamble was a dishonest Preamble, the Bill would be reported back to the House.
The hon. Member for Feltham came quickly to the point when he said that his Union's objection to the Society and their justification of the Bill was that Rule 7 of the Society's constitution was a disincentive to joining a union. He left it there as though it were a self-evident argument in favour of the Bill. Had he remained in the Chamber I should have asked him what his attitude would be to the practices of his own union and of D.A.T.A. which are incentives to join a union. I know of some. Indeed, many of us can remember Rookes v. Barnard. Some of us remember the agreements which have been reached between such unions as D.A.T.A. and A.S.S.E.T. and such companies as Rolls-Royce and English Electric, and many others—agreements which are not merely incentives but are coercive. Where do hon. Members opposite stand on that? It is easy to be a champion of freedom in one's own cause, but those who use the argument of freedom, as it has been used in

this debate, ought to know that freedom is for opponents as well as for oneself.
Of course, people should have a right to join a union, but is it not monstrous that a Private Bill should be promoted to destroy a Society of people who do not want to be members of a union? Is it to be unlawful and forbidden in this country to form a society of non-unionists? That is the whole purpose of the Bill.
The Royal Commission on Trade Unions and Employers' Associations reported, in paragraph 252, as the hon. Member for Feltham said, that in the view of the Commissioners it should be provided that no friendly society should have such a rule as is here under consideration—and they so recommended. That is a proposal—that no friendly society should have such a rule—that would require a public Bill.
Since I believe that there is only one friendly society that has this rule, of course A.S.S.E.T. has decided that it could wriggle through the rules of order of this House by promoting a Private Bill ascertaining in its preamble that its members suffer disadvantage, and so try to procure a change in the general law by this procedural device.
My only comment on this point is that this Measure comes before the House for Second Reading on the last night of the Session and will be followed immediately it is given its Second Reading by a Motion to carry it forward to the next Session of Parliament. Is there a precedent for such a thing happening in the long history of this House? I wonder. Would even a genuine Private Bill which is about the sort of things that Private Bills are about—the construction of roads, railways, and so on; the things for which such Measures are intended—be given a Second Reading on the night before Prorogation and have a special Motion to carry it forward to the next Session of Parliament?
What is the justification for this procedure? I do not wish to anticipate the next debate—I hope that there will not be one—but I suggest that it is to save the litigants the costs which they would incur and throw away. No costs have been incurred and will be thrown away on this Bill. There is the drafting of the Bill, of course, but the same Measure


may be introduced in the next Session. These costs are not thrown away. The representational costs have not begun. Thus, I ask what is the justification for this gross abuse of the procedure of the House on a night when everybody knows that there will be so few hon. Members here—that is, except those who, out of special interest, read the Private Business of the House? How many hon. Gentlemen opposite are here because they are sponsored members of trade unions? Most of them are. [Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman who proposed the Second Reading declared that he was.

Mr. Rankin: Would the hon. Gentleman call me a sponsored member of A.S.S.E.T.?

Mr. Bell: I did not say that the hon. Gentleman was such a member.

Mr. Rankin: The hon. Gentleman made an allegation.

Mr. Bell: I would think it unlikely that any trade union would sponsor the hon. Gentleman.
Some of my hon. Friends have detected this quite extraordinary and unexpected procedure. If the Bill goes through tonight, it will go through in the presence of a handful of hon. Members, most of them being specially interested by virtue of their membership of trade unions which are involved in this private dispute, and that is not good for the reputation of Parliament.
Let us consider what the Bill is about and strip it of all the humbug which has been elevated around it by the hon. Member for Barrow-in-Furness (Mr. Booth) and the hon. Member for Feltham. It is just a straightforward bit of union buccaneering — [Interruption.] — an attempt to strike at a rival through a Parliamentary Bill. Nobody can dispute that. Everybody knows that the Foremen and Staff Mutual Benefit Society is a non-union body and represents the attitudes and views of those who do not think that foremen, supervisory staffs and so on should be unionists. Whether they are right or wrong does not matter a row of pins. The question is whether there should be a law against it. Perhaps I should ask whether there should be a Private Bill against it.
Some hon. Members may come here only somewhat committed tonight, but this Measure is more important than it looks on the surface; otherwise I should not be here. I am here to question the principle involved and I have no vested interest to declare. I regard this as a bad use of Parliamentary procedure and a gross infringement of the proper principles which should inform our legislative activities.
If a union can win members, good luck to it. If it cannot, then to make it illegal to stay out of that union by a parliamentary Measure—which is, in effect, what is being done here—is a disgraceful operation. Although only a few hon. Members are present tonight, I hope that there will be some record of this matter in public tomorrow so that the people of this country may know what sort of skulduddery was indulged in in this manner at this stage of the Session.

8.15 p.m.

Mr. Stanley Orme: The hon. and learned Member for Buckinghamshire, South (Mr. Ronald Bell) adduced an argument which was not worthy of him or his party.

Mr. Eric S. Heffer: Perhaps it was worthy of both.

Mr. Orme: The hon. and learned Gentleman challenged the basic parliamentary right of introducing a Private Bill. In many ways this is an historic occasion, for this is the first time that a major trade union has introduced such a Bill.
As hon. Gentlemen opposite are aware, Bills of this character—Private Bills—have been introduced in this House for many years, back to before the time when records of the daily procedures were kept. They date back to the days of Edward VI, and in days gone by they ranked in priority with public and Government Bills. This mechanism was built up in many instances to protect vested interests. However, as soon as a trade union tries to use this privilege which Parliament has created—a privilege which hon. Gentlemen opposite have never criticised; in the years since I have been an hon. Member I cannot recall them criticising the Private Bill procedure—hon. Gentlemen opposite immediately say that it is out of court and not an appropriate procedure for a trade union.

Mr. Ronald Bell: Of course, much of what the hon. Gentleman is saying is right, but if he could show that the promoters of the Bills about which he is speaking had a vested interest he would be in a better position. There is only a contingent interest, and that makes this case disgraceful.

Mr. Orme: My hon. Friends have been declaring their interests as they have spoken. I am pleased to say that probably all of them are trade unionists, and some of them are sponsored by trade unions. They are interests which are open for all to see. I wish I could say that of the interests of all hon. Members of this House.

Mr. Edward M. Taylor: Mr. Edward M. Taylor rose—

Mr. Orme: The hon. Gentleman had his say.

Mr. Taylor: The hon. Gentleman has raised a most serious point.

Mr. Orme: I wish to declare my interest in that I am a sponsored member of the A.E.F. I am pleased tonight, in that capacity, to support A.S.T.M.S. in its endeavour to alter this anti-trade union rule. All trade unionists must feel aggrieved at this section in the rules of the Foremen and Staff Mutual Benefit Society. It is basically anti-trade union and this is what the argument is all about. The argument centres around a small rule, but a fundamental principle in the rules of this Society. We are speaking of an organisation which is not a trade union. It is interesting to note that hon. Gentlemen opposite have not tried to pretend that it is a genuine trade union. It is a friendly society the subscriptions to which are paid largely by employers and partly by members.
The organisation of assets make very interesting reading. I belong to the A.E.F. which has a membership of over 1 million, a subscription of 2s. 3d. for skilled members, and assets of about £18 million. This other organisation has 54,000 members, so-called, and assets of nearly £17 million. It would be interesting to know where that finance has come from.
Reference has been made to the meeting of members of this Society in 1963 to alter the rules. It has been said from the other side of the Chamber that that

meeting was called to tighten up evasions present in the rules. Let me say what that little tightening up escapade really was. The purpose was to add the words
… shall immediately resign from the Society and that he shall cease to have any claim on the funds of the Society either by way of benefits or return of contributions or premiums or any part thereof or otherwise.
These vicious and empty words were not added in 1922 or in the early part of the century, but in 1963.
When my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary introduced a Private Member's Bill in 1964 he had a letter from the then Prime Minister, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Kinross and West Perthshire (Sir Alec Douglas-Home) stating categorically and clearly that the Conservative Party was opposed to any form of anti-trade union legislation. That statement was read out in this House in 1964, and we have a right to ask where the Conservative Party stands today.
We have been told that here are workers leaving the shop floor, as it were, and going into management and into the foremen's society—changing sides in industry, so to speak, and leaving the type of life and employment they had enjoyed before. This is a very archaic old-fashioned way of looking at modern industry. The changes that are taking place in industry today are such and so vast that the old conception of foreman that we knew is rapidly disappearing. New types of supervisory staffs are emerging in modern industry. I believe that as we move into a period of industrial take-overs, amalgamations and rationalisation, all levels of people in industry need the protection of a proper trade union.
I should like to illustrate this point by a small example. A short time ago, a firm in the area where I live was taken over. The first thing that happened in that firm was that the supervisory staff, from the general manager to the majority of the foremen, were sacked without any pension or warning. The manager and the major supervisory staff—the superintendents and foremen—were given virtually a week's notice. Some of those men were members of my own organisation, and are still members of the trade union branch of which I am proud to be president at the present time.
I want to make quite clear the position of the unions in regard to this organisation. This is what the Amalgamated Engineering Union submitted in evidence to the Royal Commission—it is to be found in page 946 of the Minutes of Evidence:
Many of our members reach far beyond the range defined in the 1941 Agreement …
It goes on to say:
In times not so far distant, firms encouraged membership, so far as their Supervisory Staff was concerned of the Foremen's Mutual Benefit Society. And, although this encouragement is less pronounced today than in the past, the fact remains that certain firms still lay this down as a condition for a workman taking over a supervisory position, making membership of the Foreman's Mutual Benefit Society obligatory. This would. in itself, require a renunciation of Trade Union membership.
Again, in Research Paper No. 6, on Trade Union Growth and Recognition, George Sayers Bain makes the point that certain employers' organisations, and particularly the engineering employers' organisation, are in many aspects reactionary in this regard and still openly insist oil foremen and supervisory staffs joining the Foremen's Mutual Benefit Society and resigning from their own organisation. Time will not allow me to read it, but the evidence is there and has been quoted by Donovan.
It is important to note that the Donovan Report also makes it crystal clear that as we move into the period of more and more white collar workers, organisation is in the interests not only of the members within industry but of the industry itself. Many firms which have rejected this archaic method of forcing members into the Foremen's Mutual Benefit Society have found the benefit of those people being members of D.A.T.A. and the A.S.T.M.S. It is not in any way against their interests.
I cannot speak on behalf of my union, because I do not represent them here in a formal sense but, as an A.E.U. member, I fully support this proper Parliamentary use of the Private Member's Bill procedure. I hope that this Measure gets a Second Reading, and that we shall see an end of this obnoxious Clause 7 and give people within industry the right to belong to the trade union they choose.

8.28 p.m.

Mr. John H. Osborn: I came to the debate to learn and to listen to the case to be put forward by the trade union movement. I am not anti-trade union. Throughout my industrial life and now in my political life I have supported a strong trade union movement. I ought to declare a vested interest to which the hon. Member for Salford, West (Mr. Orme) referred. I am a member of a company which was one of the early members of the Foremen and Staff Mutual Benefit Society and I have attended many occasions when I have met members of the Society throughout Sheffield who have shown none of the hostility one way or another which has been expressed in the House of Commons tonight.
I intervene in the debate because I have asked myself, as many people in management and elsewhere are asking, what Parliament is up to at the end of the Session. What is the Government's view? We have had an assurance from the Government that they have no view, as this is a Private Bill. Why should there he a procedure in the House which allows the Bill to be presented to Parliament on the day before Parliament is prorogued? The answers which have been given will not satisfy many people and, although I have to respect the decision of the Chairman of Ways and Means, I believe that those who are piloting the Bill will do so in such a way that they will offend many who would otherwise be their friends.

Mr. Christopher Norwood: On a point of order. Is it not true that, this being a Private Bill, the custom and practice is that it can continue after the current Session? In that case, is not the hon. Gentleman's point invalid?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Any Private Bill requires a Motion to carry it over from one Session to another and there is, of course, a Motion on the Order Paper to do that.

Mr. Osborn: If this is to be the trend and the Bill reaches the Statute Book, I ask hon. Members to consider what will be its consequences. At the moment, there is no way of protecting the 60,000 members of the Society from, let us say, an outside take-over. The fact that this


is Human Rights Year has been mentioned, but do not the members of this Society have some rights which the House of Commons ought not completely to ignore?
I wish to discuss the activities of the Society in the City of Sheffield. Of course, it deals with superannuation and benefits for sickness, as it does throughout the country. In the Sheffield district on 30th September, 1968, there were 2,493 members, representing 106 firms. The Sheffield district is therefore one of the largest in the country and whatever happens tonight and whatever happens as a consequence of the passage of the Bill will have a major effect on the lives of those 2,500 people.
I had not been closely associated with the activities of the Society in Sheffield and I would be the first to admit that there are now graduated pension schemes, and of course in the last 50 or 60 years company pension schemes have been introduced, so that perhaps some of the Society's original objectives have been blurred and may need to be redefined. But that is no justification for redefining them in self defence when there is a take-over, if I may describe it as that, of the Society if the Bill is passed.
Hon. Members have cited examples of industrial blackmail on the part of the Society. This is news to me, but if it exists in the modern age, it cannot be allowed to continue.
Reference has also been made to the problem of the blue collar worker versus the white collar worker. It is only some two years ago that I attended a conference following a study carried out by the Duke of Edinburgh's Study Conferences. Most of those taking part had been young managers and members of trade unions. This study was about the changing status of the white-collar worker as such.
Mention has been made of the problem of when a man is promoted from the shop floor to junior supervision and management. It is my view, based on my experience when I was in active management, that a man once he becomes a manager ought to identify himself with management, because unless junior managers and, even more, senior managers feel that they are part of

management, how on earth can they manage'? This applies whether the industry is in the private or the public sector.
The problem is admittedly one of communication which must come down from top management to shop floor. But there must be a feed-back through junior management as well. Hon. Members are surely not suggesting that there is no need to encourage a man to begin to disociate himself from a shop floor once he has been promoted off the shop floor.
I ask: where are we going? Is it proposed that the managing director of any industry, as a result of this should ultimately become a member of a trade union? If he is a member of a trade union, the same as that operating in his factory, who is in charge of the company? Are there to be no employers? What is the new structure which will result from this? This Private Bill opens the door to amazing changes within industry. I am well aware that there are changes—

Mr. Peter Mahon: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that thousands of people in management are members, and have been for many years, of trade unions?

Mr. Osborn: I am, of course, aware that many people are members of trade unions. A Private Bill is not the time to be discussing the road down which we are going. This is going on inevitably, whatever Parliament says, but such a Bill as this is not a vehicle to push this forward, without having thought of the consequences.

Mr. Russell Kerr: On a point of order. May I ask the hon. Member this—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman cannot use a point of order to take part in the debate.

Mr. Osborn: What will happen now? I have been present at many seminars at which trade unions and management have taken part in discussions on this subject. I do not think that the dialogue is concluded and I do not think that those taking part in that dialogue wish it to be changed now by a Bill of this type.
It has been said that industry has changed dramatically, not just in the last 50 years, but the last 10 years. We


have a new grade of worker—the white collar workers—whose numbers are increasing. I remember that at one conference I attended, this was brought out by a reference to a skilled machine shop operator who was regarded as "shop floor" yet his daughter, who could be a comptometer operator, would be regarded as "staff". She would have all the status that went with staff grade, but why greater status than her father?
I would be the first to welcome the reorientation which is going on to improve industrial relations, reorientation of the definition of staff and worker. This is something that will happen and which I welcome. We cannot stop it. I intervene only to express my concern that this issue is being decided in a private Bill. I am glad that the hon. Member for Feltham (Mr. Russell Kerr) has resumed his seat, because he put his case very well, and, if he had been here when I began my observations, he would have heard me say that I came here to learn the case. I have been very interested in his arguments and wish to understand his point of view. I hope that he will accede to that.
I am not happy that the procedure being used, which is perfectly legal and has been endorsed by the Chairman of Ways and Means, will prove as satisfactory to the country. I regret that this has come forward before we can discuss the Donovan Report. The hon. Member quoted from paragraph 252 of that Report which said:
In our view, it is quite foreign to the purposes of a Friendly Society that it should prescribe in its rules that no one can be a member and draw benefits if he is a trade unionist.
He excluded some of the previous paragraphs which I would like to read. Paragraph 249 points out:
The Society answers that its benefits are an alternative, not an addition, to those of a trade union; that many foremen and staff do not want to join a union 'because of the possibility of a division of loyalty in times of dissension between the management they represent and the unions'.
This was implied.
Paragraph 250 of the Donovan Report reads:
We have already examined and rejected the view that trade unionism is inappropriate for white-collar workers, whether managers or not.

I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will agree with that.
Where managerial staff are organised at present, appropriate arrangements can be made—as is done in the civil service and nationalised industries—to prevent any conflict of loyalties.
This is where the dialogue must continue. There may be an immense conflict of loyalties which can lead to great difficulties within factories and the trade unions. I accept that change is going on.
The Donovan Report continues:
Where supervisors are concerned a new procedure agreement for the shipbuilding industry which came into force in August 1967 points one way out of the difficulty: it provides that supervisors below head foremen should be encouraged to retain membership of their original trade union …

Mr. Sydney Bidwell: The hon. Gentleman said that he came to the debate to learn. I think that he has still a long way to go in that respect. The dialogue is not about whether it is advisable that supervisory and managerial staff in industry should join a union, but whether they should be free to do so.

Mr. Osborn: I accept that. If they are free to do so, and if beyond a certain level they are free to join a trade union, that involves the question of structure of management, which is as much a problem within the nationalised industries and elsewhere, and it goes outside this Bill.

Mr. Norwood: In the hon. Gentleman's view, is a man free to join a trade union if it costs him a direct financial penalty? Is not that a sanction?

Mr. Osborn: I do not want to go into the question about whether a man may join a union if he wishes to do so, which has been dealt with in the Donovan Report in a big way. A closed shop does not provide freedom. There are companies which do not except trade unionism. This is a problem which must be resolved, but not by means of a Private Bill.
Paragraph 251 of the Donovan Report begins:
This does not however inevitably lead to the conclusion that the trade unions' complaint must be upheld.
The hon. Member for Feltham did not include that, and he must not say that


Donovan has dealt with this question. It is left open in the Donovan Report, and it still has to be reviewed.
I have intervened in the debate because I am convinced that this is not a matter which should be decided by trade unionists outside the 60,000 people who are members of the Foremen and Staff Mutual Benefit Society. If the Bill goes through, 60,000 members of the Foremen and Staff Mutual Benefit Society will be in an entirely new relationship with which they will have had nothing to do because it will have happened through the medium of an outside agency. The hon. Member for Feltham shakes his head. That is how it appears to me. If the Bill is rushed through Parliament because of the support of the trade unions, I wonder what the consequences of it will be.

8.43 p.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for Employment and Productivity (Mr. Harold Walker): I wish to make one of the briefest of interventions. I have been provoked by a remark of the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr. J. H. Osborn) at the outset of his reasonable and moderate speech into doing something that I might otherwise have avoided, namely, involving myself in this private battle.
The hon. Gentleman said that the Government had no views on the subject-matter of this debate. The Government do not say that. They say that they do not wish at this stage to commit themselves to a view, and that is a different matter. Obviously we have a view on the Donovan Report. I say what I have said to the House on several occasions, and that is that the Government are consulting the T.U.C., the C.B.I. and the nationalised industries about the recommendations of the Royal Commission and hope to publish a White Paper before the end of the year. It would be prejudging the outcome of those consultations if the Government reached a decision at this stage on the recommendation about the Foremen and Staff Mutual Benefit Society.
But whether or not the present Bill succeeds, the Government will consider carefully whether or not the considerations of public interest advanced by the Royal Commission justify legislation in

the more general term which the Royal Commission recommends. Certainly, the Government understand the feelings which have given rise to this Private Bill and will take them, as well as the views of the Royal Commission, fully into account in reaching their decision.

8.45 p.m.

Mr. John Page: The remarkably moderate speech of the Under-Secretary is likely to do very little to satisfy his hon. Friends behind him.

Mr. Roebuck: Speak for yourself.

Mr. Page: His hon. Friends are here tonight—even his hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, East (Mr. Roebuck), who is a great one for interjecting when seated—to try to drive through a Bill which they consider to be extremely important. The Government seem to be adopting a posture of armed neutrality, but with more neutrality than they have arms.
The Under-Secretary is, I think, absolutely right in saying that we have waited three or four years for Donovan, so why should the Government or the House now be expected to take a view on one detailed aspect of the Donovan Report? We have been waiting for Donovan on unconstitutional strikes, on industrial relations and on a new system of industrial courts to settle industrial disputes. Why should the Government suddenly go out of their way to support, or not support—because the Under-Secretary is clear in his neutrality—the objects of the Bill tonight?
The Donovan Commission was almost equally neutral in its findings in paragraph 252. Having expressed disapproval, it did not think that this was a sufficiently important matter about which to legislate.
All I would say to the Under-Secretary and to hon. Members opposite is that this is an important subject which the House should discuss. We are awaiting the White Paper. We are to examine it and dissect it. It seems strange—my hon. Friends and I find it almost inexplicable—that at the last moment of this Parliamentary Session a reason should be found for this detailed Bill.
There is a strong argument for saying that if a man wishes to join a trade union he should be allowed to do so. Our


Conservative policy has laid the foundations for saying that when we come back to office, if a majority of employees in a company wish to join a trade union, that union should be recognised.
Equally, if any hon. Member accepts the view that a man or woman should be allowed to join a trade union with rules which at present are very flexible, I cannot see why that man or woman should not be allowed to join a friendly society or other organisation with equally flexible rules.
The Bill tries to change the rules of a certain friendly society. What I think is surprising, considering all the large numbers of trade unions, which have their rules, which may or may not be misunderstood by the public at large, is that no effort is being made to change those rules, and it would be interesting to hear from a e Under-Secretary of State whether he feels that when the White Paper comes out new regulations for the vetting or registration of trade union rules will be included in the Government's forward look at their trade union thinking for the future.

Mr. Harold Walker: I am following what the hon. Member says about the rights of a member of a union to transfer to a friendly society, but I wonder whether he would reconcile that with the following passage of what, I admit, is in many ways a useful and constructive document, the Tory policy document, "Fair Deal at Work", which, on page 25, states, as one of the recommendations:
Those who are already members of a union should not be required to transfer to another

Mr. Page: That is at the bottom of page 25:
Those who are already members of a union should not be required to transfer to another".
It is surely a question that the rules of a union or friendly society must stand on equal terms, on the basis of the argument which the hon. Gentleman has presented.
I have no argument with what the hon. Gentleman said tonight. All that my hon. Friends and I feel is that it is strange, to say the least, that at this

advanced moment the Bill is being brought forward, a Bill which seems to try to circumscribe, in advance of the decisions which are to be made by the Government in their White Paper, and confirmed, or not, by the House, after Donovan, whether the rules of the friendly society which we are discussing tonight should or should not be changed.
I myself feel that this is an inappropriate moment for this rather small and detailed aspect to be discussed, and I hope that the Under-Secretary of State's hon. Friends will accept from him the sensible, neutral view that this matter should be discussed in the context of Donovan as a whole. We are looking forward to discussing that because it has immense possibiilties for us all.
I hope that hon. Members opposite will take the bigger view rather than just the parochial view and accept what, I think, is the Under-Secretary's recommendation, that the discussion tonight should be considered useful in the context of Donovan, but that they should follow his lead and not press to a Division this Bill, which is presented on a very factional basis.

8.54 p.m.

Mr. Julius Silverman: The House desires to come to a conclusion on this Bill. Therefore I shall not detain hon. Members for any length of time. I will just say, in relation to what the hon. Member for Harrow West (Mr. John Page) said, that this Bill does not arise from Donovan. This has a long history starting long before the Donovan Commission came into operation. This struggle has gone on for very many years. The Bill does not arise from Donovan but is a culmination, I hope, of a struggle which has taken place against a number of antediluvian firms applying anti-trade union practices. We pray Donovan in aid, it is true, but in precisely the same way we prayed in aid the Report of the Prices and Incomes Board.
Therefore, the question of waiting until the whole of Donovan is debated and legislated upon does not arise. The Government are right to say that this is an issue which has been pending for a long time, that the House is entitled to come to a view tonight one way or the other and that the decision should not be delayed any further.
Having listened to the hon. Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Edward M. Taylor) and others, I am still awaiting the justification for the remarkable and anachronistic clauses 7 and 11 in the rules of this Society. Why are they there? We do not know. There seems to be an attempt completely to misrepresent the objectives in the Bill or to misunderstand it. The Bill does not impose on anyone the obligation to join a trade union.

Mr. Ronald Bell: Does it not make it illegal for a society of non-trade unionists to remain a society of non-trade unionists? That is what the Bill is about.

Mr. Silverman: It alters the Society's rules. It does not make any member of the Society who desires to remain a non-trade unionist join a trade union. That is the point. It is no use hon. Members opposite pretending otherwise. The Bill is not an attack on anyone's liberty. Indeed, it is an enlargement of people's liberty to join a trade union without a penal sanction.

Mr. Edward M. Taylor: From the hon. Gentleman's long experience, which I respect, can he give a guarantee that, in his opinion, in the event of these rules being removed no one will be forced to join a trade union?

Mr. Silverman: I am dealing with the Bill and not with the question of forcing people to join a trade union. It does not force anyone to join a trade union. If a man desires to remain a non-trade unionist, nothing in the Bill makes him join a trade union. To suggest otherwise is to misrepresent the purpose of the Bill.
The hon. Gentleman suggested that the Bill provides a financial disincentive only. Every penalty is a financial disincentive. A court fine is a financial disincentive. It is a euphemistic way of saying that one is penalising trade unionists for being trade unionists. That is precisely the point we are objecting to.
The hon. Gentleman also suggested that we want to destroy the Society. There is nothing in the Bill that would do so. It is, after all, a friendly society whose sole function is to distribute benefits among its members. If that is so, why should it be inconsistent with trade unionism? Why should it be impossible

for people to be members of both? We suggest that, in substance, this is simply a device by certain employers—and not a democratic device—to discourage trade unionism in a certain section of industry.
The hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr. J. H. Osborn) rather gave the game away when he propounded the philosophy that managerial staffs should be part of management and should not be members of a trade union—that there should be confrontation between management and supervisory staffs on the one hand and manual workers on the other. Some of us, and most employers, believe that that is an outdated philosophy. We believe that it is possible for supervisory staffs conscientiously to perform their duties to management without any question of confrontation and at the same time to be members of a trade union which negotiates their conditions. In that respect our philosophy is very different from that propounded by the hon. Member for Hallam.

Mr. J. H. Osborn: Where would it end? Has the managing director of every company to be a member of a trade union?

Mr. Silverman: Why not, if he wants to join? I assure the hon. Gentleman that the union of which I am a member—not a sponsored member—invites managers to join. Many people in high executive positions join unions. I see no objection to this. We believe that the old idea that supervisory staff and draughtsmen are simply an extension of management and that there is a division between them and the blue-collar worker is wrong in principle, bad for industry, and against public policy. I therefore hope that the House will give the Bill a Second Reading.

9.1 p.m.

Mr. Frederick Willey: I intervene because I believe that it will meet the convenience of the House if I do so now. I shall be brief for the same reason.
It has been suggested that the House should not reach a decision this evening because we have not had the advice of either Front Bench. This is a good reason for the House to take the initiative and reach a decision. Both Front Benches have had the same opportunities as we


have had to discuss and examine the Donovan Report. Therefore, hon Members should be able to take their own decision and express their opinions individually. We may be setting a very good precedent tonight in taking this Opportunity to reach a decision, without the guidance of the Front Benches, on an issue which, although it affects only the membership of this union, is undoubtedly a matter of wider public importance.
We are concerned with two rules of a friendly society which are discriminatory against trade unionism. It can be argued—indeed, the hon. Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Edward M. Taylor) so argued—that, if discrimination is prevented, somebody's freedom and independence are interfered with. This is true. If we had been arguing this matter 50 or 60 years ago, the hon. Gentleman would have had much more support on his own side. He knows full well that he represents a tiny fraction of his party now when he seeks to justify discrimination against trade unionism. This is what we are concerned about.
We must look to what guidance we have. We have the two Conventions of the International Labour Office. We have the National Board for Prices and Incomes, which may appeal to some hon. Members and not to others. We have the fair wages resolution, which is the view of the House. Now we have the

Report of the Donovan Commission, which was the body to which the parties to this dispute referred their dispute. They argued the case before the Commission. The Commission decided unanimously that this was a discriminatory practice which was against the public interest and against public policy.

That is all that the House is being asked to decide tonight. The exercise of this discrimination—this is why we are discussing this under the Private Bill procedure—is greatly to the prejudice of the members of one trade union. The House should have no hesitation in affirming overwhelmingly that this is a practice which should cease. It is not an interference with the rights of the friendly society. It is an interference with the action of the friendly society in discriminating against people who wish to be members of trade unions.

Mr. Orme: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. May I move, That the Question be now put?

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Sydney Irving): As there are no Members seeking to speak, the hon. Member may regard that as superfluous.

Question put, That the Bill be now read a Second time:—

The House divided: Ayes 125, Noes 9.

Division No. 312.]
AYES
[9.6 p.m.


Archer, Peter
Finch, Harold
Lee, Rt. Hn. Frederick (Newton)


Atkins, Ronald (Preston, N.)
Foot, Michael (Ebbw Vale)
McBride, Neil


Bagier, Gordon A. T.
Ford, Ben
MacDermot, Niall


Beaney, Alan
Forrester, John
McKay, Mrs. Margaret


Benn, Rt. Hn. Anthony Wedgwood
Freeson, Reginald
Mackenzie, Gregor (Rutherglen)


Bennett, James (G'gow, Bridgton)
Gourlay, Harry
Mackie, John


Bidwell, Sydney
Gray, Dr. Hugh (Yarmouth)
McMillan, Tom (Glasgow, C.)


Booth, Albert
Greenwood, Rt. Hn. Anthony
McNamara, J. Kevin


Braddock, Mrs. E. M.
Gregory, Arnold
MacPherson, Malcolm


Brooks, Edwin
Griffiths, David (Rother Valley)
Mahon, Peter (Preston, S.)


Broughton, Dr. A. D. D.
Griffiths, Eddie (Brightside)
Manuel, Archie


Butler, Herbert (Hackney, C.)
Griffiths, Rt. Hn. James (Llanelly)
Marks, Kenneth


Carmichael, Neil
Harper, Joseph
Mellish, Rt. Hn. Robert


Coe, Denis
Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)
Mendelson, J. J.


Coleman, Donald
Hattersley, Roy
Millan, Bruce


Concannon, J. D.
Heffer, Eric S.
Miller, Dr. M. S.


Davidson, Arthur (Accrington)
Hilton, W. S.
Milne, Edward (Blyth)


Davies, Ednyfed Hudson (Conway)
Hooley, Frank



Davies, Dr. Ernest (Stretford)
Howarth, Harry (Wellingborough)
Morgan, Elystan (Cardiganshire)


Davies, Harold (Leek)
Howie, W.
Morris, Alfred (Wythenshawe)


Dell, Edmund
Huckfield, Leslie
Morris, Charles R. (Openshaw)


Dewar, Donald
Hughes, Hector (Aberdeen, N.)
Mulley, Rt. Hn. Frederick


Diamond, Rt. Hn. John
Hughes, Roy (Newport)
Newens, Stan


Doig, Peter
Hunter, Adam
Norwood, Christopher


Dunwoody, Mrs. Cwyneth (Exeter)
Hynd, John
O'Malley, Brian


Dunwoody, Or. John (F'th &amp; C'b'e)
Jeger,Mrs,Lena(H'b'n&amp;St.P'cras,S.)
Orbach, Maurice


Eadie, Alex
Johnson, James (K'ston-on-Hull. W.)
Orme, Stanley


Ellis, John
Jones, T. Alec (Rhondda, West)
Oswald, Thomas


Evans, Fred (Caerphilly)
Kenyon, Clifford
Owen, Dr. David (Plymouth, S'tn)


Evans, Ioan L. (Birm'h'm, Yardley)
Kerr, Mrs. Anne (R'ter &amp; Chatham)
Page, Derek (King's Lynn)


Fernyhough, E.
Kerr, Russell (Feltham)
Pannell, Rt. Hn. Charles




Parkin, Ben (Paddington, N.)
Skeffington, Arthur
Whitaker, Ben


Peart, Rt. Hn. Fred
Slater, Joseph
White, Mrs. Eirene


Pentland, Norman
Small, William
Whitlock, William


Perry, George H. (Nottingham, S.)
Snow, Julian
Willey, Rt. Hn. Frederick


Price, William (Rugby)
Steele, Thomas (Dunbartonshire W.)
Williams, Alan Lee (Hornchurch)


Reynolds, Rt. Hn. G. W.
Swingler, Stephen
Williams, Mrs. Shirey (Hitchin)


Roebuck, Roy
Tinn, James
Williams, W. T. (Warrington)


Rogers, George (Kensington, N.)
Urwin, T. W.
Winnick, David


Ryan, John
Wallace, George



Shaw, Arnold (Ilford S.)
Watkins, David (Consett)
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:


Short, Mrs. Renée(W'hampton,N.E.)
Weitzman, David
Mr. James Dickens and


Silkin, Rt. Hn. John (Deptford)
Wells, William (Walsall, N.)
Mr. Peter Jackson.


Silverman, Julius






NOES


Bell, Ronald
Powell, Rt. Hn. J. Enoch
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:


Biffen, John
Smith, Dudley (W'wick &amp; L'mington
Mr. John Osborn and


Boyd-Carpenter, Rt. Hn. John
Smith, John (London &amp; W'minster)
M. Edward M. Taylor.


Monro, Hector
Ward, Dame Irene



Page, John (Harrow, W.)

Bill accordingly read a Second time and referred to the Examiners.
Ordered, That the Promoters of the Foremen and Staff Mutual Benefit Society (Application of Rules) etc. (No. 2) Bill shall have leave to suspend Proceedings thereon in order to proceed with the Bill, if they think fit, in the next Session of Parliament, provided that the Agents for the Bill give notice to the Clerks in the Private Bill Office before the close of the present Session of their intention to suspend further Proceedings and that all fees due on the Bill up to that date be paid;
Ordered, That on the third day on which the House sits in the next Session the Bill shall be presented to the House;
Ordered, That there shall be deposited with the Bill a Declaration signed by the Agents for the Bill, stating that the Bill is the same, in every respect, as Bill presented to this House, in the present Session;
Ordered, That the Bill shall be laid upon the Table of the House by one of the Clerks in the Private Bill Office on the next meeting of the House after the day on which the Bill has been presented, and when so laid, shall be read the first and second time (and shall be recorded in the Journal of this House as having been so read) and shall stand referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills;
Ordered, That any petition presented in the present Session against the Bill shall stand referred to the Committee to whom the Bill may be committed in the next Session;
Ordered, That no further Fees shall be charged in respect of any Proceedings on the Bill in respect of which Fees have already been incurred during the present Session;
Ordered, That these Orders be Standing Orders of the House.—[The Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means.]
[To be communicated to the Lords.]

UNEMPLOYMENT BENEFIT (PAYMENT)

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Harper.]

9.15 p.m.

Mr. Edwin Brooks: The Donovan Commission has already figured prominently in our debate this evening, and among other things it has recently given us a valuable summary of the so-called trade dispute disqualification for unemployment benefit, and I am conscious that any remarks of mine will do scant justice to a deep-seated, complex and controversial problem to which there is no simple answer.
It would also be out of order, in a debate such as this, to recapitulate those arguments which led the Commission to argue for certain changes in the law, although it is relevant to my subject to-night to stress, as did the Commission, that
subject to minor drafting amendments the conditions under which disqualification for unemployment benefit occur have remained unchanged since 1927.
My purpose is not to delve into the remote past, but to describe a number of events which occurred in my constituency, and on Merseyside, during the Parliamentary Recess, and, in particular, I should like to examine what happened at Girling's brake factory, Bromborough, where successive disputes led to serious dislocation throughout the motor industry.
The scale of the turmoil which these and similar local disputes can cause in such a closely interlocked industry needs no stressing. Rather like the chain reaction in a critical mass of plutonium,


the economic repercussions are wholly disproportionate to the original small-scale explosion over wage rates, bonuses, or what-have-you.
But if only because such inordinate damage can be sparked off by local grievances and resentment, it is important that potential friction-points are removed wherever possible, and that the role of the State is seen to be fair.
As the law now stands, workers laid off by an industrial dispute are entitled to unemployment benefit if they can prove that they were not participating in the trade dispute which caused the stoppage, nor financing it, nor directly interested in it. But, in addition to this, there is the so-called "grade or class" provision, which debars the worker's entitlement to benefit if he belongs to a grade or class of workers, some members of whom were participating in, financing, or directly interested in the dispute.
In 1927, this provision was narrowed, and has since applied only in respect of workers of the same grade or class employed at those premises where the stoppage occurred.
Now, against this background, let me turn to the dispute which erupted initially on 22nd August and again in the first week of September, and involved 27 standard body shop inspectors of the 204 inspection department at Girling's. This was an unofficial dispute over a productivity bonus, and according to a letter addressed by the firm on the 4th to the local employment exchange, the 40 remaining patrol inspectors at the factory—who had been laid off as a result of the dispute together with many other employees—would
not benefit from any productivity bonus the 27 patrol inspectors obtain from our domestic negotiations.
Furthermore, went on the firm,
they are a different class of patrol inspector than the ones that were in dispute with the company,
One the face of it, the firm should know best what goes on within the factory, and it was quite clear that any link between the strikers and their similarly titled workmates was tenuous. Nevertheless, the wheels of procedure ground on, and the firm were asked for further details on behalf of the regional insurance officer.

Eight questions, which I presume must be fairly standard ones, were put. including:
How are each group of workers regarded, i.e. are they skilled, semi-skilled or unskilled?
I suppose that as a means of building up an identikit of ineligible outlaws, such questions might contribute relevant information. But if I can look more closely at the question I have just quoted, it seems hard to square this with the concluding part of paragraph 977 in Donovan, which relates how an attempt by a local insurance officer to define a man's "class" of work in crude terms such as "semi-skilled" was dismissed by the Chief Insurance Commissioner.
As Donovan makes clear, to use such crude designations for the purposes of the Act would be to disqualify vast numbers of workers all of whom fall within that same general class as the actual strikers. Yet the questionnaire seems to regard such correlations as meaningful.
There is not time to discuss each of the other questions, but the same sort of criticism can surely be levelled at the question "Are the two groups of workers interchangeable?"
In levelling such criticism, I realise full well the dilemma of the Ministry officials who have to interpret a law which Donovan itself regards as ambiguous and unsatisfactory, and which appears to have been so regarded as early as Lord Blanesburgh's Committee on the unemployment insurance scheme in 1925–27.
Nevertheless, I am bound to say that the plight of the 40 unfortunate patrol inspectors—for they were refused unemployment pay as from 22nd August, in the light of the replies sent to the questionnaire—makes me doubt whether the procedure for implementing the grade or class provision can be other than pendantic, inflexible and bureaucratic.
Indeed, the problem is almost one of semantics, with vital terms such as "class" of work being open to varying interpretations of the sort of I have described over the "unskilled" argument Again, if I may quote Donovan:
We ourselves are"—

Mr. John Page: From where is the hon. Member quoting?

Mr. Speaker: Order. If the hon. Member does not give way. the hon. Member


for Harrow, West (Mr. John Page) must remain seated.

Mr. Brooks: It would be more appropriate if I concluded the sentence. The Donovan Report says:
We ourselves are not able to suggest a definition of 'directly interested' which will put all doubts to rest.
I hope that that clears up the point.

Mr. John Page: Will he tell us where the quotation—

Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Member has no prescriptive right to intervene. His right to do so is conceded to him by the hon. Member who has the Floor.

Mr. Brooks: Speaking from memory, the hon. Member will find it in one of the paragraphs between paragraph 950 and paragraph 990.
Finally, on this vital difficulty of definition of terms used in the Statute, there is the anomaly, if not the ambiguity, inherent in the disqualification extending only to workers employed in the same "premises"—particularly in a period when it can truly be said that no factory is an island. Short of the change proposed by Donovan—to abolish the grade or class provision and end these capricious and bitterly resented decisions—I would have thought it sensible to disqualify such men, and only such men, as the firm itself in the first instance is prepared to allege fall within the Act.
Such an allegation would, naturally, have to be tested carefully, in the same way as at present, by the regional insurance officer; but it would end such absurdities as the disallowance of the 40 inspectors at Girlings, since the firm would not have wished to see innocent men "fined" by a blundering State bumbledom. I put this suggestion forward somewhat tentatively, since the rules of procedure forbid me doing what I would otherwise do—which is to reinforce wholeheartedly the Donovan recommendation about the abolition of the grade or class rule.
My second case history, again at Girling's last autumn, was closely linked to the original dispute I have mentioned, but quite different issues of procedure were raised by it. The dispute which led to unofficial action by the 27 inspectors was settled on the weekend of the

14th-15th September, but in the meantime a further dispute involving security men at the factory—who were supported by the lorry drivers—had completely closed the works.
The circumstances of this strangely interwoven sympathy action are not really relevant to my story—and they were in any case described in a well-authenticated article by Anthony Cowdy, in the Sunday Times of 22nd September—but suffice it to say that the inspectors, all 67 of them, were unable to resume work on the 16th.
On the 18th, following the men's perfectly natural and legitimate request for unemployment pay as from the beginning of that week, the local employment exchange sought some clarification of their position from Girling's. The firm were asked to confirm that agreement had been reached and that "all patrol inspectors would have resumed work on the 16th but for the current dispute with security men etc."
On the 19th, following representations to me by some of the inspectors, I had lengthy discussions with both the firm and the local employment exchange manager, and I summarised the position in a letter sent that same day to my right hon. Friend the Minister of Employment and Productivity. The firm, which did not receive the letter of inquiry by the employment exchange until the 20th, were naturally only too happy to clarify the position of the inspectors, and the whole matter, I felt, could have been settled—subject to a confirmation in writing—by a quick telephone call from the regional office to the firm.
However, despite my making the point that the inspectors had by then been without unemployment pay for four weeks—and that includes the 40 who had never even struck in the first place—Manchester were unable to reach any quick decision. I personally was given to understand that "all the papers" had to go up to London, although I am blessed if I see why we have regional and local offices unless they have delegated powers to make quick decisions in cases such as this.
Small wonder that as the days went by the resentment of the 40 inspectors mounted, for, in effect, they were now being penalised not only for having been


unlucky enough to belong to the same grade or class as their striking colleagues, but also for having been unable to return to work because another group of workmates, not even in the same grade or class, had in the meantime taken industrial action. The regional office appears not to have consulted the C.I.O. until 25th September, two days after the men finally were able to resume work.
A few days may not matter much to Ministry officials, who are no doubt groaning under the weight of all the papers which they are busily despatching back and forth to London. But it matters to men who are denied something to which they rightly feel entitled. In fact, it was not until the Friday of the following week—the 27th—over a week after I made my own telephoned and written inquiries, that the matter was sorted out and benefit granted as from the 16th. It may well be true, indeed, that the regional insurance office approached the local offices to authorise this only as late as 2nd October.
In a reply which my hon. Friend sent me on the 18th of this month, which covered a wide range of issues accumulated during the previous month, he said that
the circumstances of trade disputes inevitably make it very difficult for our officers to establish all the facts necessary to enable the statutory authorities to determine the claims made by workers laid off.
I accept that delay is unavoidable in such circumstances, and I do not want to suggest that officials who are burdened by a host of claims are being dilatory for the sheer hell of it. But I really do not see, in the dispute which I have just described, why the whole matter could not have been settled by a simple question being put to the firm: are the inspectors still off work because of the dispute which some of their number engineered, or is their present unemployment inadvertent? Surely that involves precious little paper work.
Instead of that, I received a letter only this evening from the personnel manager of the firm in which he said:
You will, I am sure, understand when I say that in the aftermath of the strike the patrol inspectors who did not receive benefit were very bitter, and I regret to say the blame was directed against the management of this company.

That is not the way to establish good industrial relations in this industry.
I wish, finally, to turn to the quite distinct procedures over disqualification due to so-called "misconduct". In the standard form of inquiry which is filled in by an employer following termination of a worker's job, misconduct is stated to include
such matters as breaches of discipline or works rules, or conduct which is inconsistent with the fulfilment of conditions of employment, or which prevents an employee from performing his work efficiently.
I accept, of course, that an employer must have the absolute right—a common law right confirmed in the Contracts of Employment Act, 1963—to dismiss without notice for misconduct. No one could tolerate the sort of gross insubordination which might well, among other things, endanger the safety of fellow workmates. But procedure over dismissal is one thing; procedure over the repercussions of various types of dismissal upon unemployment benefit is another thing altogether.
The present situation is that where unemployment is due to misconduct as I have described, or due to the worker losing his employment "voluntarily without just cause," he is liable to forfeiture of benefit for up to six weeks. Last month I was told by the late secretary of the Birkenhead branch of the E.T.U., Mr. J. F. Johnston, of the experience of some of his members. They had. he wrote,
changed jobs and were made redundant in less than six weeks work. Their benefit was suspended whilst inquiries were made from the firm which made them redundant and from the previous firm they had worked for. When the Ministry found out they had been simply made redundant, their benefit was restored.
My subsequent inquiries were answered by my hon. Friend on 27th September. He explained the way in which the six weeks' disqualification rule led to a procedure—in essence non-discretionary, if I understand him—whereby inquiries were made to all those employers for whom the unemployed applicant for benefit had worked in the previous seven weeks. If any reply "raises doubt" about entitlement,
payment of benefit is suspended while the necessary further inquiries are made of the claimant, and sometimes of the employer.


Despite my hon. Friend's explanation, I find this all rather unsatisfactory. Furthermore, this simple example seems to illustrate the wholly dubious philosophy of the rule itself. For here is the State accepting the unsupported word of the employer, and delaying the payment of perhaps urgently needed benefit to someone who has been presumed guilty of an alleged misdemeanour for which—even if true—he has already been punished by loss of job. The employer, who might have unfairly alleged misconduct—a point which Donovan grapples with in a major section—gets off scot-free. He is not fined by the State if the allegations prove groundless or mendacious.
To put it summarily, I suspect that for many years we have tended to confuse two distinct issues: industrial disciplines and National Insurance provisions. But even accepting, as here I must, that the law is the law and that the State should act as a financial long-stop to the employer's authority in the factory, I urge my hon. Friend to look again at the day-to-day procedure for determining blame. I am uneasy about a procedure which seems to penalise, and even humiliate, a man before he has an opportunity to put his side of the argument.
Put this way, I feel that all my cases have at least this much in common; that whether the person be one of my patrol inspectors who struck, or one who did not strike, or one of Mr. Johnston's electricians, we see a procedure which is riddled with anomalies and potential unfairness, and conducted with a painstaking slowness which does nothing to help remove the thousand and one pinpricks caused to industrial relations. The Ministry is rightly urging a more rapid disputes procedure to help eradicate these damaging strikes. A similar sense of impatience would not come amiss within the Ministries themselves.

9.31 p.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for Employment and Productivity (Mr. E. Fernyhough): The subject which my hon. Friend the Member for Bebington (Mr. Brooks) has chosen to discuss on the Adjournment tonight has been raised many times in the House in the 20 or so years that I have been an hon. Member.

On past occasions I have done precisely the same as my hon. Friend in raising this matter.
My hon. Friend has expressed concern with the way in which the trade dispute disqualification has been applied in the circumstances of the dispute at Girlings. He will not, of course, expect me to make any comment on what he said about this. The date from which the disqualification of the patrol inspectors was removed was a matter, as are all decisions on individual cases, for the independent statutory authorities alone, and my right hon. Friend has no power to intervene in them.
I wish to speak of the trade dispute disqualification itself, because I know from experience that men affected by it sometimes find it difficult to understand why they have been refused benefit, not least in the very complicated dispute of the kind we are discussing. It would, in any event, be unrealistic to expect any rule which deals with so controversial a subject to escape criticism, and we all recognise—I am sure that my hon. Friend does—that trade disputes can develop in a great variety of circumstances, and the problems of devising a formula which will limit the payment of unemployment benefit in a way that is accepted as reasonable by all concerned—that is by management and trade unions—are very formidable indeed.
This was one reason why the Donovan Commission was asked by the Government to examine the working of the trade dispute disqualification for unemployment benefit. I will come to its recommendations, to which my hon. Friend referred, though I realise that as legislation would be required to implement them, I would incur your displeasure, Mr. Speaker, if I said too much on this topic.
My hon. Friend will appreciate that it can be a difficult task to establish the true and relevant facts of the situation when a dispute occurs, a task which has additional difficulties as the situation changes and further grades of worker are affected.
That was so in the case of the Girling dispute, where there were further withdrawals of labour arising from other


issues but affecting the intended resumption of work. Then there was the complication of a later second withdrawal by the patrol inspectors.
Strictly speaking, the National Insurance Act, 1965, results in the disqualification of all persons laid off because of a trade dispute at their place of employment unless they are able to prove that they are free from disqualification in the way allowed by the Act. In practice, however, careful inquiries are made by employment exchanges, in consultation with regional officers, to discover from the employer and the trade unions or parties concerned the detailed facts of the situation which the statutory authorities will require.
It would not be possible to deal efficiently with the large numbers of workers who can be affected by disputes without adopting what is known as the test case procedure. This involves the selection of individual cases which are agreed with the unions as representative of the various grades of workers involved. The procedure is advantageous to claimants, to the adjudicating authorities and to our Department. It saves large numbers of individual claims liable to disqualification, and saves the adjudicating authorities from having to determine every individual claim. It speeds up the adjudication process—and, indeed, permits the speedy allowance of all those cases in which benefit can properly be paid. For these reasons it is generally regarded as acceptable by the workers organisations.
Trade dispute claims are considered by regional insurance officers because of the complexity and importance of the cases and because the effect of decisions goes far beyond a single employment exchange area. My hon. Friend will have noticed that the test cases for the large body of operatives affected by the dispute in the first place were investigated and selected, sent to the regional insurance officer and decided favourably by him within a matter of five days.
It is the case representing the 40 patrol inspectors who were laid off following the withdrawal of labour of 27 patrol inspectors which is presenting difficulty. This case involved several inquiries before the regional insurance officer imposed a disqualification for the period of the stoppage. An appeal was made

against that decision at the beginning of this month, and the appeal will be heard by the local tribunal on 4th November. Papers have to be prepared for the use of the tribunal, the claimant and other interested parties. In fixing the date for the hearing, the availability of the chairman and members has to be taken into account, together with the necessity of at least a week's notice to all concerned. The object is to fix the hearing at the earliest date possible and permitting the attendance of a full tribunal, the insurance officer, the claimant, the trade union representative and, where necessary, the employer.
I now turn to the separate question of disqualification because of misconduct or leaving voluntarily and the inquiries which have to be initiated by employment exchanges. When such doubts arise, my hon. Friend will appreciate that there must be adequate protection for the National Insurance Fund against claims for benefit. In these circumstances, there is no alternative to suspending payments of benefit whilst inquiries are made. But my Department's local offices fully realise the necessity for making these essential inquiries with the utmost speed. Nevertheless, there must be times when the facts are difficult to establish and the inquiries—in fairness to all concerned—are bound to take longer than may seem reasonable to a man who believes that his benefit has been wrongfully withheld.
I think we are all aware that the present trade dispute rules for unemployment benefit have at times caused a good deal of dissatisfaction, and my hon. Friend has certainly made his dissatisfaction clear tonight—particularly with the "grade or class" provision. But let us recognise what these rules are supposed to do. They are not intended to enter upon the merits of the dispute—and indeed they must not do so—nor are they intended to imply any judgment upon the parties to the dispute. They exist simply to limit the payment of unemployment benefit so that it cannot be said that the State social security scheme is giving financial support to people who stand to gain from an industrial dispute.
Naturally some of those affected by the rules will claim that they are harsh, and certainly nobody would deny that their practical operation is at times


exceedingly complex. But then, so are some of the disputes to which they must apply. As my hon. Friend has said, the Royal Commission has recommended the abolition of the grade or class provision. It has also suggested that the concept of financing should be considerably modified. These recommendations, along with numerous other recommendations made by the Commission, are now being considered by the Government in consultation with both sides of industry. Inevitably, this takes time, but we realize

the urgency of reaching conclusions and my right hon. Friend has undertaken to present a White Paper as soon as possible.
We share my hon. Friend's concern about these issues, but this is not a simple matter, nor simply an insurance matter. It goes deep down into the whole question of industrial relations.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at twenty minutes to Ten o'clock.